What your credit card's travel insurance does and does not cover

TopRates.ca is educational. We don't sell credit cards or earn commissions from the banks mentioned here. Nothing here is advice for your situation; terms change, so confirm every limit on the issuer's current certificate of insurance before you rely on it.

Credit card travel insurance stops at three places most cardholders never look: a trip-length cap counted in days, a lower cap that kicks in at 65, and a pre-existing condition clause that can void the medical coverage entirely if your health changed in the months before you left. Everything the card advertises is real. It is also bounded, and the certificate of insurance — not the welcome brochure — is where the boundaries are written.

Every Canadian credit card with travel benefits comes with a certificate of insurance issued by an insurer, not by the bank. The certificate is the contract. The card's marketing page and welcome guide summarise it, sometimes in a sentence, and the summary is accurate as far as it goes — but the exclusions, definitions and day counts live in the certificate, which is typically a long PDF linked from the issuer's cardholder agreements page.

The federal consumer agency's guidance on travel health insurance is blunt about the general point: a policy may not provide coverage for medical conditions you had before applying for insurance. And the federal consumer affairs office reminds travellers that when travelling outside Canada you are responsible for any emergency medical and hospital costs that exceed the rates set by your province or territory, which is why the card's coverage matters in the first place.

Days, and fewer than most people assume. The certificates and guides we read on October 3, 2026 give the pattern.

• TD's welcome guide for the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite card states coverage for the first 21 days of your trip, and that if you or your spouse is aged 65 or older, you are covered for the first 4 days — with emergency medical coverage up to $2 million outside your home province or territory.
• RBC's certificate of insurance for the RBC Avion Visa Infinite card, issued by RBC Insurance Company of Canada, covers fifteen consecutive days of a trip for insured persons under 65 and three consecutive days for those 65 or older, and states that the maximum benefit for emergency medical insurance is unlimited unless otherwise noted.
• TD's March 24, 2022 notice of changes to the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Privilege card's insurance, underwritten by TD Life Insurance Company, sets the limits at 31 consecutive days under 65 and 4 consecutive days at 65 and over, with a maximum of $5,000,000 per insured person per covered trip.

Two things stand out. The cap is on consecutive days of the trip, and coverage on a longer trip ends on the cap day rather than shrinking across the whole trip — day 22 of a 30-day trip on a 21-day card is uninsured. And the premium card does not necessarily buy the longest cover; the day counts are a design choice by each issuer, not a function of annual fee. The caps above range from 15 to 31 days for the same age group.

The age cap is the single largest cliff in card travel insurance, and it arrives without ceremony. On the certificates above, a cardholder's covered trip length drops from 21 to 4 days, from 15 to 3, from 31 to 4, on the day they or their spouse turns 65. A couple who have relied on a card for a decade of two-week trips can find that at 65 their card covers a long weekend.

The pre-existing condition look-back lengthens too. On the RBC certificate, the stability period is ninety days before departure for persons under 75 and 180 days at 75 and over; on the TD Privilege notice, 90 days under 65 and 180 days at 65 and over. Older travellers are therefore caught twice: fewer covered days, and a longer window in which any change to a condition can exclude it.

Not conditions you have — conditions that have not been "stable" for a set period before you leave. Stability is defined in the certificate, and the definitions are strict. On the RBC certificate, a condition is not stable if there has been any new treatment prescribed or recommended, or any change to existing treatment, in the look-back period — the definition also reaches medication changes, a worsening of the condition, new symptoms, hospitalization, a referral to a specialist, and planned or pending treatment. The TD notice's stability requirement runs the same way: no new treatment, medication changes, symptom worsening, specialist referrals, pending tests or planned procedures.

Read that against an ordinary life. A dose adjustment on a blood-pressure medication, a referral for a scan, a test result still pending at departure — each can make a condition "unstable" under the definition, and a claim for that condition, or one related to it, can be denied. The glossary entry on pre-existing conditions explains the term; the certificate is where your card's version of it is written.

It depends on the benefit. On the certificates we read, emergency medical coverage did not depend on charging the trip to the card; it attached to the cardholder. Other benefits in the same certificates — commonly trip cancellation, trip interruption, flight delay and baggage — can require that the travel be charged to the card, in full or in part. Check each benefit separately rather than assuming one rule covers them all.

A separate travel medical policy, or a top-up to the card's coverage, is worth pricing when any of these is true.

• The trip is longer than the card's cap. A top-up for the days beyond the cap is the common fix; TD's guide, for example, says top-up coverage is available for purchase for trips longer than the covered period.
• You or your spouse are 65 or over. The cap may now be a few days.
• Anyone's health has changed in the look-back period — new prescription, dose change, referral, pending test. A separate policy with its own, sometimes shorter, stability period, or one that will cover the condition explicitly, is the honest answer.
• Someone travelling is not covered by the card at all. Certificates define who is an insured person — commonly the cardholder, a spouse and dependent children — and a friend or an adult child may be outside the definition.
• You want a known maximum. "Unlimited" and "$2 million" sound equivalent until a long hospital stay abroad; a standalone policy's limits and assistance services are worth comparing.

For how standalone policies are built, see the travel insurance guide. For the trade-offs in the rest of a card's feature set, including where no-fee cards tend to be thinner, see how to compare no-fee credit cards.

• Find your card's current certificate of insurance and confirm the trip-length cap for your age.
• Read the stability definition and apply it to every traveller's last 90 or 180 days.
• Check which benefits require the trip to be charged to the card, and charge it accordingly.
• If any line fails, price a top-up or a separate policy before departure, not after.

Issuer terms above are as read on their own websites on October 3, 2026 and change without notice. Confirm against the current certificate for your card.

TopRates.ca is educational. We don't sell credit cards or earn commissions from the banks mentioned here.

Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, "Health insurance": travel health insurance may not provide coverage for medical conditions you had before applying. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Office of Consumer Affairs, "Travel": responsibility for emergency medical costs abroad above provincial rates; credit cards may offer medical, baggage and other insurance. Checked October 2026.

TD, "TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card Welcome Guide" (td.com): travel medical insurance for the first 21 days of a trip, 4 days where the cardholder or spouse is 65 or older, up to $2 million. Read October 3, 2026.

RBC, "RBC Avion Visa Infinite Certificate of Insurance" (rbcroyalbank.com), issued by RBC Insurance Company of Canada: 15 consecutive days under 65 and 3 consecutive days at 65 or older; unlimited emergency medical maximum unless otherwise noted; pre-existing condition stability periods of 90 days under 75 and 180 days at 75 and over, with the stability definition. Read October 3, 2026.

TD, "Updates to the inclusive insurance on the TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Privilege Card" (March 24, 2022), underwritten by TD Life Insurance Company: 31 consecutive days under 65 and 4 at 65 and over; $5,000,000 per insured person per covered trip; 90-day and 180-day stability periods. Read October 3, 2026.