Travel Insurance for a Canada Visa Application

Canada, like the UK and unlike the Schengen area, does not attach a published insurance figure to a standard visitor visa. Insurance still belongs in your planning, and for one particular Canadian reality it matters more than most travellers from Nigeria expect: healthcare in Canada is not free for visitors, and provincial health plans do not cover you.

This guide covers where insurance sits in a Canadian application, what our cover pays on a Canadian trip, and what to confirm before you travel. You can price your exact dates whenever you want.

Is insurance required for a Canadian visitor visa?

For a standard visitor visa, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada does not publish a fixed insurance minimum in the way Schengen states publish EUR 30,000. What officers assess is whether you have sufficient funds for your stay and genuine ties that support your return.

Insurance is supporting evidence within that picture, not a numbered requirement. Some other Canadian routes, particularly certain family and longer-stay streams, do carry their own medical insurance conditions. Those are route specific.

Rules change, and they differ by stream. Confirm the current requirement for your exact route with IRCC or the visa application centre handling your file rather than relying on a general guide. You can price your Canadian dates while you check.

The part that actually costs money

Canada's public healthcare is funded provincially and it covers residents. As a visitor you are not covered by it. Emergency treatment is charged, and ambulance transport is charged separately in most provinces.

That is the real argument for cover on a Canadian trip, independent of the visa. Canada sits on our worldwide zone:

Reading the excess column. The excess is the first part of a claim you pay yourself. Nil means there is none, so the insurer pays from the first naira. Not stated means our schedule does not set one for that benefit, so check your policy wording. Some excesses are a length of time rather than money: a "6 hours" excess means the delay has to pass six hours before anything is payable.

Three benefits are worth noticing for a long-haul trip like Canada. If you are hospitalised for more than five days, the policy covers a return economy ticket plus EUR 50 per day. A relative can be flown out to you on an economy ticket. And accommodation for relatives or companions is covered at EUR 40 per person per day up to EUR 200. Those only exist on the worldwide zone, and are listed in full on the cover page.

A practical note on Canadian winters

If you are travelling between roughly November and March, build delay into your expectations. Winter weather disrupts Canadian aviation routinely, and connections through Toronto, Montreal or Calgary are the ones most often affected.

Trip delay is covered up to EUR 500 at EUR 50 per six hours, and missed departure or connection up to EUR 500 with a six hour excess. Keep your airline documentation, because a delay claim is only as good as the evidence of the delay. Delay limits are published with the quote.

Getting the certificate right

• Dates must cover the full stay, outward and return, matching what you tell IRCC.
• Names must match the passport exactly and in the same order.
• Buy before you submit, so the certificate is in the bundle rather than following it.
• Check your destination can be issued before you plan around it. The form checks at the point of purchase.

Common questions