SafetyWing Nomad Insurance is a subscription travel medical plan for people who spend most of their time abroad. As of September 2026, the Essential plan costs $62.72 per 4 weeks for travelers aged 18–39, with a $250,000 overall limit and lost-luggage cover of up to $3,000.

In other words, it offers the best value of any travel and medical insurance plan on the planet.

Sign up for SafetyWing today.

What Is SafetyWing Insurance?

The brainchild of three Norwegians living in Silicon Valley, SafetyWing launched in 2018 with a new take on travel and medical insurance. In SafetyWing’s words, they’re building the “global safety net for online freelancers and entrepreneurs.” It’s the future of travel and medical insurance for frequent travelers and digital nomads alike.

SafetyWing covers unexpected illnesses and injuries sustained abroad, including expenses for hospitals, doctors and prescription drugs. It also covers emergency travel-related benefits such as emergency medical evacuation, emergency dental treatment, travel delay/interruption and lost luggage. It even offers coverage in your home country, perfect for the frequent traveler who still likes to visit home once in a while. The Essential plan includes up to 30 days of medical coverage in your home country.

SafetyWing’s policy excludes the same things as just about every other travel medical insurance policy: cancer treatment, pre-existing conditions (though it does include the acute onset of those pre-existing conditions) and routine check-ups.

How Much Does SafetyWing Cost?

As of September 2026, SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance Essential plan costs $62.72 per 4 weeks for travelers aged 18–39. Like all travel medical insurance, the price goes up with age, so use SafetyWing’s quote tool to see your exact price. Cover renews every 4 weeks, so you can keep it for as long as you travel and stop when you don’t need it.

SafetyWing also sells a more comprehensive Complete plan, currently $177.50 per month, with no restrictions on cover in your home country. Source: SafetyWing.

How Is SafetyWing So Cheap?

SafetyWing keeps its price low in three main ways:

1. No middlemen: SafetyWing cuts out the middlemen by eliminating agents and selling insurance directly to the consumer.
2. A single policy: While most insurance companies offer dozens of different overlapping policies, SafetyWing only sells one policy, which allows them to streamline their back-end processes and offer that policy at a much lower cost.
3. A focus on fairness: If even one customer bills their cancer treatments to SafetyWing at $10,000 a pop, that means every other customer has to pay for them through higher fees. SafetyWing avoids this cost asymmetry by excluding high-cost, highly specific items like cancer treatment from its policy entirely, while still providing coverage for the acute onset of pre-existing conditions. The healthy don’t need to overpay for the sick any longer.

What Does SafetyWing Cover?

These are the headline limits of the Essential plan as of September 2026:

Benefit	Limit
Overall maximum limit	$250,000
Lost checked luggage	$500 per item, $3,000 in total
Medical cover in your home country	Up to 30 days

Emergency medical treatment, emergency evacuation, emergency dental and trip interruption are included too, each with its own limit. Check SafetyWing’s policy wording for the full list before you buy. Source: SafetyWing.

The Weaknesses of SafetyWing

There are a few things to know before you sign up:

• Valuable items: lost luggage is capped at $500 per item, so expensive cameras, drones or laptops won’t be fully covered.
• Home-country cover is limited on the Essential plan (up to 30 days). If you spend long stretches at home, the Complete plan has no restrictions there.
• Some adventure sports are excluded. Check the policy wording if you plan anything extreme.
• Not ACA-compliant: it doesn’t count as health insurance under the US Affordable Care Act.

The Ideal SafetyWing User

If you meet these three criteria, SafetyWing is built specifically for you:

1. Non-USA: You can definitely still be American as long as most of your travels in a given year take place outside of the United States.
2. Non-Gear Junkies: You don’t travel with lots of expensive equipment. By expensive equipment, I don’t mean a MacBook, an iPhone and some Bose noise-cancelling headphones—these are exactly the type of people SafetyWing is built for. I’m talking about top-of-the-line photography equipment, professional-grade drones and other electronics worth $5,000 or more per piece.
3. Non-Thrill Seekers: Again, I’m not talking about things like surfing and rock climbing here—those are all covered by SafetyWing. I’m talking about serious thrill seekers, people that are heli-skiing, base jumping and piloting their own hot air balloons. See page 19 of SafetyWing’s policy for a full list of sports and activities they don’t cover (if you don’t consider yourself a true thrill seeker, you probably don’t need to read the list).

How To Find A Medical Provider While Abroad (A.K.A. What To Do In An Emergency)

SafetyWing has made finding an insured provider as easy as typing in your location on their website.

Just log in to SafetyWing.com, select “Find Hospital or Doctor” from the main menu and search their worldwide network of qualified doctors, hospitals and specialists for the nearest one to you. (Note: You do need to log in to see their list of providers, though you can see the list before buying a plan.)

When you arrive, show the doctor or nurse your SafetyWing ID (it’s a digital card in your online profile). Sometimes, though not always, they’ll send your bill directly to SafetyWing and its insurance providers.

Once you submit your Claimant’s Statement to explain what happened, you’re all set.

Since I’m in Bangkok as I write this (yes, I’m a digital nomad myself), I did a quick search on SafetyWing.com to see what providers are available in Bangkok. There are fourteen providers in total, including Bumrungrad International, which is regularly named one of the top ten hospitals in the world on both service quality and technology.

Then I searched for Toronto, my hometown, to see what’s available there. As expected, all of the major hospitals—Mount Sinai, Princess Margaret, St. Joseph’s, Toronto General, and even Sick Kids—are all there. The award-winning Bochner Eye Institute, recognized as one of Canada’s top eye care facilities, is also on the list.

How To Sign Up For SafetyWing

1. Go to the SafetyWing website here and click Sign me up in the top-right. You don’t need any promo/coupon code or invitation code to get the Essential plan; everyone has access to it.
2. Click Register, and then sign up using your email address or Facebook account. Enter the basic personal information (name, country of residence) and you’re all set! You’ve successfully signed up for SafetyWing.

SafetyWing FAQs

How To Cancel SafetyWing Insurance

Canceling your SafetyWing subscription is as easy as canceling your Spotify subscription: simply login to their website and click Cancel. If you cancel your subscription partway through the month, it will remain active until the end of the month that you’ve already paid for.

How Do You File An Emergency Claim With SafetyWing?

Dial the phone number for your local representative as shown in this list here (I recommend saving this file and keeping it in an easy-to-find place while you’re traveling).

If you can’t reach your local representative, call their global office at +1-317-262-2132.

When asked for your account code, dial 911411#. The agent that picks up will instruct you on how to proceed.

If you need to file a medical claim, you can either do it online by emailing this form to service@hccmis.com or by mailing the original bill and payment receipts to this address:

Tokio Marine HCC – MIS Group
P.O. Box 2005
Farmington Hills, MI, USA
48333-2005

All claims must be filed within 60 days of when the insurance period ends.

Where Can You Travel With SafetyWing Insurance?

SafetyWing is valid in every country worldwide except for North Korea and Iran.

Do I Qualify For SafetyWing?

Yes! The only real qualification for joining SafetyWing is that you spend most of your time outside of your home country. That means SafetyWing is appropriate for people in any of these situations, and more:

• Digital nomads and frequent travelers who spend 10 months or more outside of their home country annually
• Expats living abroad
• Foreign workers living and working in another country

Why Should You Trust SafetyWing? Is SafetyWing A Scam?

Don’t just take my word for it.

SafetyWing took part in the Winter 2018 cohort of Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator that’s known to be the best in the world. That means they’re joining the likes of Airbnb, Dropbox and Reddit as Y Combinator graduate companies.

On the insurance side, SafetyWing has hired senior insurance experts with 30+ years of industry experience to set up their plans. They’ve partnered with the worldwide insurance giant Tokio Marine for all of their plans, which are underwritten by Lloyd’s. One of their founders (Hans Kjellby) is also a lawyer, which doesn’t hurt in this industry.

What Should Americans Know About SafetyWing?

Since the United States’ healthcare system is much more expensive than anywhere else in the world, there are two key things Americans need to know about using SafetyWing:

1. SafetyWing Is Not Eligible For The Affordable Care Act: It’s worth noting that SafetyWing does not qualify for available coverage under the Affordable Care Act, so if that’s your primary reason for signing up, you’ll have to look elsewhere. However, for anyone living and working in the United States but not holding a United States passport (ie. foreign workers from Mexico, Canada or anywhere else), SafetyWing might just be the most affordable healthcare option out there.

What Are The Major Differences Between SafetyWing And World Nomads?

1. SafetyWing Is 1/3 The Cost: SafetyWing costs one-third of World Nomads. Normally with a price difference like this, you’d expect to see some serious deficiencies in SafetyWing’s coverage, but there actually aren’t. I’ve already explained what I believe is SafetyWing’s one major deficiency, but all things considered, it offers an even better policy for a third of the cost of World Nomads.
2. SafetyWing Gives You More Flexibility: SafetyWing uses a monthly subscription model (ie. you pay per month and can cancel whenever you want, just like Spotify) while World Nomads, and just about every other insurance provider out there, requires you to take out a policy of predetermined length. Insurance companies love fixed policies, since they a) receive a large chunk of money from their customers upfront, and b) are generally nonrefundable if your 6-month trip ends after 3 months. SafetyWing throws all this out the window and opts for the simplicity and fairness of a monthly subscription.