Your health plan
stops at the border.
Ours doesn't.
Most U.S. medical plans pay little or nothing outside the country, and almost none will find you a doctor in Lisbon at 2am. Waugh Agency places international medical coverage through Blue Cross Blue Shield Global Solutions — plus HTH and IMG — for one trip, a year of trips, or a life lived somewhere else.
Domestic coverage is written for a domestic network.
Read your certificate and you will usually find one line about care outside the United States: emergencies only, reimbursed after the fact, at whatever the plan decides is reasonable. That is not coverage you can rely on when a hospital in another country wants payment before it will admit you.
An international medical plan solves three separate problems at once — who pays, who finds the doctor, and who gets you home. Those are three different phone calls without one, and one phone call with one.
Payment, without the cash up front
Hospitals outside the U.S. generally will not bill an American insurer. Global plans run on a direct-billing network and a guarantee-of-payment letter, so the provider gets paid by the carrier instead of by your credit card.
Somebody who knows the local system
Care abroad is less a coverage question than a navigation question. Which hospital, which language, which drug is the local equivalent of the one you take. That is a 24/7 assistance line and a provider finder, not a claim form.
Evacuation and repatriation
Medical evacuation from a remote area routinely costs into six figures and is excluded by most domestic plans. Global medical plans build it in, along with political and natural-disaster evacuation on the group products.
Real coverage, not just emergencies
Long-term international plans are full medical plans: prescriptions, dental, vision, preventive visits, primary care, maternity, mental health. If you are living abroad rather than visiting, that distinction is the whole ballgame.
Three plan shapes. Quote and buy any of them online.
Blue Cross Blue Shield Global Solutions — the carrier you knew as GeoBlue — is the trade name of Worldwide Insurance Services, LLC, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Members use the Blue network at home and a direct-billing network across more than 190 countries abroad.
Single Trip
One journey abroad, covered end to end. Leisure, business, mission work or a semester — the simplest product we sell, and the one most people actually need.
- Trips up to 182 days
- Limits up to $1,000,000
- $0-deductible options available
- Evacuation & repatriation included
- Group version for parties of 5+
Multi-Trip
For the person who crosses an ocean five times a year and stops buying a policy each time. One annual purchase, then you simply go.
- Unlimited trips in a 365-day period
- First 70 days of each trip covered
- Worldwide coverage outside the U.S.
- No re-application before each departure
- Sensible for consultants and sales teams
Long-Term & Expat
A real health plan for a life abroad, not a travel policy stretched thin. Prescriptions, dental, vision, preventive and primary care, maternity and mental health included.
- Outside your home country 3+ months a year
- Worldwide, with or without U.S. coverage
- Students & faculty worldwide
- Missionaries, NGO & non-profit workers
- Maritime crew
- Renewable year to year
Two different products. People buy the wrong one constantly.
Trip cancellation protects the money you spent on the trip. Travel medical protects the person taking it. They cover almost nothing in common, and the traveller who bought a $79 cancellation policy at checkout usually believes they are covered for both.
Plenty of travellers should carry both. If you want somebody to look at the itinerary and say which one matters more for your trip, that is a five-minute phone call — (800) 779-4090.
HTH Travel Insurance, for the trip on the calendar.
HTH is operated by the same parent company as BCBS Global Solutions, which is why the two feel so similar in the field. HTH is where we go for straightforward short-term travel medical — and, in some states, it is simply the brand available to that resident. We check both before quoting.
It is a good fit when the trip is defined, the traveller keeps a U.S. plan at home, and what they need is medical protection for the weeks they are away rather than a full health plan built for living abroad.
Single-trip medical, sized to the trip
Coverage for one international journey with selectable medical limits and deductibles, so a two-week holiday and a three-month sabbatical are not forced into the same policy. Run a quote.
Primary or secondary to your U.S. plan
Some HTH plans assume you already carry domestic coverage; others do not require it. Which one you want depends on whether you are insured at home — a question worth answering before you buy, not after a claim.
Elite provider network with direct pay
Where the network reaches, the provider can be paid directly rather than by you at the desk. That is the single most useful feature of any travel medical plan and the one people notice.
Availability varies by state
Multi-state licensing is routine work for us. If your team is spread across New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California, the answer will not be the same brand in every state — and we will tell you that before you shop.
Nobody buys global medical for the premium. They buy it for the phone number on the back of the card, and the night they finally have to call it.
If your people cross borders, this belongs in the benefits plan.
Global medical is not an individual purchase for most of our clients. It is a line in the benefits package, quoted alongside medical, dental and life — and administered in the same place as the rest of it.
Business travel medical
For employees sent abroad on company business. Priced per trip or per year, and far cheaper than most employers assume once it sits inside a group contract.
Expat group medical
Assignees posted overseas for a year or more, with dependants. Full medical, pharmacy, dental and vision on a plan the employer owns rather than one each family buys alone.
Schools & study abroad
Outbound student programs and inbound international students, with the administrator portal and rosters the study-abroad office needs to run the term.
Political & disaster evacuation
Duty-of-care coverage for teams in volatile regions. When a border closes or a storm lands, somebody has already planned how your people get out.
Administered in Employee Navigator
Global medical sits in the same portal as everything else — online enrollment, AI-assisted plan building, automated compliance tracking, 600+ carrier and payroll integrations. Free to eligible client groups; we absorb the fee.
Startups with distributed teams
Two founders in Boston, an engineer in Brooklyn, a designer in Lisbon. Multi-state and international at once is normal work here, not an exception we make.
International Medical Group, still on the shelf.
Waugh Agency has placed business with IMG for more than a decade, and we have kept the appointment. The plans are generally a step lighter than the BCBS Global Solutions portfolio — but they are competitively priced, they quote fast, and for certain cases they are simply the better answer.
Where IMG earns its place: trip cancellation bundled with medical, adventure and extreme-sports coverage, evacuation-only policies, and marine crew. You can compare plans, view rates and buy online through our producer page.
Individual & family
Coverage for citizens travelling outside their home country, for a single trip or an extended stay abroad.
Group
Travelling parties on vacation, and employers with people posted at locations around the world.
Student, scholar & faculty
Studying, teaching or researching outside the home country, on terms study-abroad offices recognise.
Trip cancellation
Cancellation and interruption, travel delay, medical expense and baggage for individuals and families — the piece a pure medical plan does not cover.
Specialty
Evacuation-only policies, adventure and extreme sports, and medical coverage written for sea captains and crew.
Buy it online in ten minutes, or let us do it properly.
Every link on this page goes to a real quote engine and you are welcome to use it. The reason to call first is that the questions that decide the right plan are not on the quote form.
What we ask before quoting
The five questions that change the answer, in the order they matter.
- How long are you gone, and how often?
- Do you keep a U.S. plan while away?
- Any prescriptions or ongoing conditions?
- Which country, and how remote?
- Individual purchase, or an employer benefit?
Where we work
Home ground is the Northeast. The clients are wherever the work took them.
- Boston, Andover, Worcester, the Cape & Western Mass
- New York City, all five boroughs & Long Island
- New Jersey, Jersey City & Philadelphia
- Connecticut, New Hampshire & Maine
- All 50 states, directly or through trusted affiliates
Things worth knowing first
The rules that trip people up, before they cost anyone a claim.
- Buy before you leave — not after you land
- Purchaser must be 18 or older
- Plan availability varies by state of residence
- Some countries require proof of coverage for a visa
- Medicare pays almost nothing outside the U.S.
Tell us where you're going, and for how long.
That is genuinely most of what we need to point you at the right plan. Submit the form and a licensed broker will be in touch within one business day — or call and we will price it with you on the phone. If you would rather just buy it now, the BCBS Global Solutions quote engine is open around the clock.
This page is general educational information, not legal, tax or insurance advice for a specific situation. Plan benefits, limits and availability vary by state, by plan and by country of travel — the policy documents govern. Blue Cross Blue Shield Global Solutions is the trade name of Worldwide Insurance Services, LLC, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.