If like me you are so excited to be planning trips around Mexico, you might be asking “Do I need travel insurance for Mexico?” and the answer is yes. I’ve been living here for about 9 months in Merida, a city in the Yucatan and have loved exploring new places around the country. After five years in India, it’s a very different vibe altogether! I’ve written about travel insurance on my blog, but want to address travel insurance for Mexico specifically in this post.
Do I need travel insurance for Mexico travel?
The truth is that yes you do, and not only for Mexico but essentially anywhere you travel you should always be budgeting in travel insurance into the equation. Even in a place that is light on the wallet like India, you need insurance, which I have written about in detail here.
Often, people think that because they are going to a country which is less expensive than the one they are in, that health care will be “cheap” and they can go without it – after all, if something happens, they can just pay out of pocket? The truth is that something like a broken arm or kidney infection could run your $2,000 USD while an insurance policy will run you as low as $61 for a week of travel or $111 for two weeks (I just did a quick search to check).
You can run your own quote here. Just enter your home country and state, where you are going (Mexico), your dates, and age. It will tell you two different quotes the standard plan and the explorer’s plan.
Mexico is a great country to travel but of course, like many big cities around the world some places here do have a higher rate of petty theft, scams, and you do need to be street smart. The smartest of travelers still sometimes face issues abroad and having travel insurance for those or getting sick is such a relief – as your home insurance likely won’t cover your outside of your country. The amount of expats I have read about in the news here in Mexico who have $50,000 hospital bills from car accidents and aren’t allowed to leave the country until they pay is just crazy. It’s not a risk I would take.
Some reasons you might need travel insurance for Mexico are:
- Your flight gets canceled or delayed
- Your luggage is lost and the airline is being useless as usual!
- Your luggage, purse, or other belongings get stolen
- You get ill and need an overnight hospital stay
- You have a serious accident and need surgery or even life-flighted to a bigger better hospital
- You need someone from your home country flown to Mexico to help you in the case of an injury or illness and their flight needs to be paid for.
- You are doing adventurous activities in Mexico like scuba diving
- If you are renting a car (more on this later, it’s so important!)
Why World Nomads travel insurance for Mexico?
World Nomads is the best travel insurance there is based on cost and coverage. They focus their insurance on adventurous travelers and make sure to cover a wide and varied set of issues with a low fee. Everyone from Hostelworld to Frommer’s and Lonely Planet recommend this travel insurance and so have I on this blog for five years. I’ve personally used it since 2009.
World Nomads offers:
- Competitive prices
- Known to reimburse easily and without hassle
- Cover adventurous activity injuries in their “explorer” package
- You can extend your policy while you are traveling, which most other won’t allow, if you decide to stay longer in Mexico
- Customer service available 24/7
World Nomads rates are easily affordable for budget backpackers but their coverage is so good that even if you are a mid-range to a luxury traveler, they are the place to book through.
Renting a car in Mexico, travel insurance options:
If you are renting a car in Mexico, you will want to know about this! With the “explorers” package from World Nomads, CDW is covered (collision damage waiver). In Mexico, 750,000 MXN liability insurance is always legally on a car rental and with your CDW from the travel insurance that means you can decline all coverage when you rent a car. So those “upsells” they do at the car rental place, you can decline it. Many people can already do this with certain credit cards (I do with my Chase Sapphire) and it saves hundreds of dollars. This will pay for the travel insurance itself. There are such cheap car rentals in Cancun and other tourist hotspots. I’ve gotten a month car rental for $15 (kid you not, it was $.50 a day and then I declined insurance). Insurance would have been $20/day for the month which would have been a $600 fee that I got to avoid. You can too with travel insurance. There are so many small benefits like this!
Be careful to note that some car rental places will really try to push for the insurance and tell you that you are not covered, but you are. You might need to print out proof to show them. Remeber when booking to print out your car rental rules where it will state the 750,000 MXN liability is already there – they often try to make you pay twice for it.
What is an isn’t covered on World Nomads travel insurance
I would go into this in detail but I already wrote a post that breaks this down point by point with screenshots so click out to see what’s covered on WN insurance. Get a quote for World Nomads travel insurance for Mexico here or using the widget below.

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