By home country
Does your home insurance work abroad?
Your employer plan, national health system, or private domestic cover almost never travels the way you think it does. Here's exactly when it stops working (and what to carry instead), broken down by where you're from.
Australian nomads
If you are an Australian abroad, Medicare does not cover you. It pays nothing for healthcare overseas, with one narrow exception: limited public-hospital cost-sharing in the 11 Reciprocal Health Care Agreement countries, which still excludes GP visits, private care, and the flight home. Your domestic private health cover does not travel either; it is suspended while you are away. For real protection you carry your own travel or international health insurance.
Read guideCanadian nomads
If you are a Canadian abroad, your provincial health plan barely follows you. It reimburses only a tiny daily fraction of foreign medical bills, never pays the hospital up front, and covers no medical evacuation. Quebec's own example: a three-day Florida hospital stay can cost up to US$200,000, of which the province reimburses about CA$300. Stay away too long and you can lose provincial coverage entirely. You carry your own travel or international health insurance.
Read guideIrish nomads
If you are an Irish nomad abroad, your cover depends entirely on where you are. Inside the EU, EEA and Switzerland your EHIC pays for medically necessary public care on short stays, but it never covers private treatment or the flight home, and patient charges still apply. Outside Europe, in Thailand, the US or anywhere else, the EHIC is worthless and you are fully self-pay. The State is explicit that it will not pay your bills or an evacuation, which from India alone can reach €145,000. You carry your own travel or international health insurance.
Read guideNew Zealander nomads
If you are a New Zealander abroad, almost nothing follows you. Publicly funded healthcare is free only when used in New Zealand, ACC does not pay your overseas medical bills, and the two reciprocal agreements, with the UK and Australia, cover only immediately necessary public treatment, never repatriation. Everywhere else you are fully self-pay, and the government is explicit it cannot fund the medical costs or medical evacuation of Kiwis overseas. You carry your own travel or international health insurance.
Read guideBritish nomads
British digital nomads rely on the NHS, which is residence-based, not citizenship-based. The UK Department of Health treats anyone in the UK for less than six months as unlikely to be 'ordinarily resident', though there is no hard day count. UK GHIC covers necessary state-provided care in the EU/EEA, Switzerland and a handful of other countries, but it does not cover private care, repatriation, or care outside the GHIC area.
Read guideAmerican nomads
American digital nomads' US employer or marketplace health insurance almost never covers routine care abroad and only covers emergencies under tight, plan-specific time limits. Some employer business-travel riders, for example, cover trips of up to six months, while standard US group plans treat routine care abroad as non-covered entirely. Your own number is in your Summary of Benefits and Coverage.
Read guide