Best Travel Insurance for an African Safari

From car accidents in the crazy African roads to our safari van getting toppled over by an elephant, going on safari can be dangerous and that is why you need insurance.

The Best Travel Insurance for an African Safari is the Travel Insurance package offered by World Nomads. It covers emergency medical insurance and emergency evacuation. It also covers over 200 Adventure activities including bushwalking and safari tours.  

I would like to begin by giving a disclaimer that I am not an insurance professional I’m just a traveler. Ensure that you read your policy documents carefully before signing and consult a professional if need be.

Best insurance plan for an African Safari

I spent several hours in forums and  found that you need to have two Travel Insurance covers when coming to Africa. These are:

1. your Regular Travel Insurance that you get before leaving for the trip
2. Emergency Evacuation by a Local provider

Regular Travel insurance

The first is your regular travel insurance that covers all the risks of going on safari with emergency Medical and Medical evacuation being the most critical.

I spent some time looking through different travel forums looking for recommendations on the best travel insurance company for African safaris.

Based on this research, I found that the best travel insurance provider is World Nomads. They provide travel insurance cover that takes care of the entire gamut of needs when going on an African Safari.

More specifically, they cover:

1. Trip protection cancellations
2. Emergency Medical Insurance
3. Emergency Evacuation
4. Gear Protection
5. Include Safari activities like
   • Hot Air Ballooning
   • Ziplining
   • Trekking (up to 22,969 ft)
   • Safari Tours
   • Bush Walking etc.

Emergency Medical Cover by Local Provider

The second is extra emergency evacuation cover offered by AMREF Flying Doctors. They are located in Nairobi and offer rapid emergency air evacuation from remote places in Africa using their air ambulances. I have been to the AMREF Facilities at Wilson Airport and can confirm that they are legit. (They are not paying me to say this, I just think they are awesome and do great work.). Amref is a non-profit organisation that provides remote medical assistance to people in eastern central Africa and most of their profits are channels to this since they do it for free or close to nothing.

The reason I recommend the extra AMREF Flying Doctors cover is that, unlike your regular travel insurance cover, they will respond faster to an emergency call and dispatch airplane within minutes. I don’t have the actual data for how long travel insurance companies take to dispatch help but the lag time involved in calling back home for them to authorize their agents to send a plane is longer than that of a local company like Amref.  In addition to this, the valuable time that may be lost in trying to coordinate with your travel insurance back home may be devastatingly crucial and so I think this coverage worth it. Check out the AMREF Flying Doctors website and decide for yourself.

Difference between travel insurance and health insurance

When doing my research, I found that the travel insurance covers mostly medical emergencies like injuries and accidents so it got me thinking, can I use my regular health insurance instead of getting separate travel insurance?

After doing a bit more digging I found that travel insurance covers a whole lot more than just medical emergencies when out on safari. in addition to ensuring that you get proper medical attention in the case of any medical emergency travel insurance also covers the loss of your luggage receptions to your trip and the inconvenience cancellations or disruptions to your trip let me not be medical-related.

This means that even though you have an insurance plan for your health, you need to get specific travel insurance for African Safari.

What you can claim from an African Safari travel insurance plan(Coverage)

1. Medical emergencies and health complications; I found that the medical cover makes the highest proportion of the insurance cover. This is usually divided into two categories
   1. Medical evacuations: This covers for you to be repatriated back to your
   2. Emergency Medical treatment: The term “emergency” gives it away. You will only be covered if your treatment is an emergency and cannot wait for you to get back to your home country.
2. Lost or delayed luggage: Losing valuable luggage can be quite costly and it helps if you were insured for this eventuality.  
3. Lost passport
4. Missed flights and connections: Delays in flights can make you miss your connecting flight and this loss would be borne by the insurance company.
5. Cancellations: you may be unable to go for your African Safari due to circumstances beyond your control, you can have your payment refunded through the insurance. you may also want to add the “cancel for any reason” add on which typically increases your premium by about 40 to 50% but allows you to cancel that trip for any reason.
6. Trip Alterations: different from trip cancellation alterations allow for refunds in case part of your trip is interrupted while you have already started your Safari. the difference between alterations and cancellations is that you cannot claim a cancellation refund when you have already started your trip but can claim an alteration refund.
7. Overseas Death: in the unfortunate event of losing your life while on safari in Africa you travel insurance will ensure that your body is brought back to your home country.
8. Natural Disasters: if you are caught up in a natural disaster like a flood, your travel insurance will take care of reimbursing the costs incurred to get back to safety.

What’s not covered

1. Injuries from Extreme sports: if you’ll be participating in any extreme sports like whitewater rafting bungee jumping or skydiving, your travel insurance will not cover for any injuries that occur from these activities unless they have been explicitly mentioned in the insurance policy.
2. Unnecessary Medical Check-Ups: your insurance plan will not cover the cost of medical procedures that are not emergency in nature.

Features of a great African Safari Travel insurance plan

Based on what I found online the best insurance plan for travelling to the East African region for Safari needs to have the following features

1. Adequate Medical coverage

the fact that most safari destinations are located in very remote places with little to no medical facilities that would be needed in the case of a medical emergency.

This means the travel insurance plan you choose needs to have adequate emergency medical cover and a large medical evacuation cover. The figures that I found on most forum posts when doing research for this article were $100,000 for emergency medical cover and $1,000,000 for emergency medical evacuation.

2. Covering the basic risks

These include cancellation cover, passport loss, loss of baggage, etc as I listed them in what’s usually covered.

3. Responsiveness to inquiries

You may need to make urgent contact with your insurance provider if something happens to you when out on your African Safari and they will need to respond promptly to your requests. They, therefore, will need to be easily contactable and able to act quickly to requests.

4. Contacts or partnership with local African Medical Facilities and Emergency infrastructure

When doing research for this article, I found that almost all the people who experienced an incident that required them to make a claim complained about having to make payments for their medical emergencies using their credit cards then claim for reimbursement after returning to their home country.

I personally think this is odd and quite inconvenient if you don’t have any extra lines of credit available to tap into. This is worse if you need to be evacuated from a remote national park.

I didn’t really find a fix for this other than getting a medical evacuation cover with AMREF Flying Doctors located in Nairobi. This would be on top of your normal medical cover but only costs about 35USD. If you get injured and need to be evacuated, the camps can radio AMREF and they will send an air ambulance to bring you to a hospital in Nairobi.

How to make a claim from your Safari Travel insurance provider

As I stated earlier, earlier I found a number of people complaining that when something bad happened,  they had to spend their own money then get reimbursed when they got back home. this was usually a medical emergency that required urgent attention and sometimes large amounts of money. I found that the main reason for this is that most African hospitals do not accept health foreign health insurance and would require payments before undertaking procedures like surgeries.

You, therefore, need to be aware of how you should make a claim before leaving your country so to ensure that you follow the right procedures and collect all the necessary documentation to make your claim once you come back.

Below are the  Procedures and documentation you need to have when making a claim for travel insurance.

1. You need to inform your insurer as soon as anything that requires you to make a claim happens.
2. In the case of a medical emergency and sure that you have all the documentation prescriptions doctor’s letters and receipts from the hospital. It may also be useful to authenticate any of these documents in the hospital by getting an official stamp or company seal before you leave.
3. In the case of any loss of luggage or theft,  you need to report the incident as soon as is possible to the police and get a letter authenticating this report.

A Final Word

As you prepare for your trip to Africa, I would like to recommend a few products that would help make your life easier. 

1. Information About Africa: I have created a YouTube channel that focuses on things about traveling to Africa that only Africans can tell you about. Check out the channel for insights about African culture and things you can do as a traveler to optimize your trip. You should also visit TripAdvisor forum posts (Here is the Kenya Forum) and ask questions about your particular situation. There are a lot of people who are happy to help you out. 
2. Choosing a Safari Company: I have written an extensive article on how to choose a safari Company. You can. Check it out before starting the process of searching for a safari company.
3. Safari Planning Services: If you’d rather leave the planning to an expert, I offer personalized safari planning services. I handle everything from helping you choose the right safari company, creating your custom itinerary, managing bookings, and even providing a packing list and reminders for important trip details. It’s like having a personal assistant dedicated to your trip, ensuring that everything runs smoothly, so you can focus on enjoying the adventure. Learn More in this article