What should Bali travel insurance cover?

Travel insurance for Bali is not complicated, and three specific clauses account for most declined claims from this island.

1. The motorcycle clause

This is the big one. Scooter accidents are the most common serious injury to visitors in Bali, and most policies will only pay if:

• You held a licence valid for that engine size, which for most visitors means an international driving permit with the motorcycle category obtained at home.
• You were wearing a helmet.
• You were not over the alcohol limit.

Fail any of those and a policy will typically decline the claim. The cost of that is not theoretical: hospital treatment plus a medical evacuation home after a serious accident runs into tens of thousands of dollars.

If you intend to ride, get the permit at home before you travel, and check the policy wording explicitly rather than assuming.

2. Medical evacuation

Bali has good private clinics in the south — BIMC, Siloam and others — and for serious cases, treatment often means evacuation to Singapore, Australia or home.

Check the policy has medical evacuation and repatriation cover with a meaningful limit, not a token one. This is the single largest potential cost of a trip here and it is rarely the number people compare when buying.

3. Activities

Standard policies frequently exclude or limit:

• Scuba diving, often covered only to 18 or 30 metres and only with appropriate certification.
• Surfing, usually covered, but check.
• Trekking above a certain altitude, which matters for Rinjani at 3,726 metres.
• Volcano trekking, which some policies exclude outright.
• Jet skis, quad bikes and parasailing.
• Boat travel, including the fast boats to the Nusa Islands and the Gilis.

If your trip involves diving, Rinjani or a liveaboard, check these specifically. Divers should also consider dedicated dive insurance, which covers chamber treatment properly.

What else is worth having

Cancellation and curtailment, which matters here because volcanic activity has closed Bali's airport before and will again.

Baggage and personal items, with a per-item limit that actually covers a laptop or a camera if that is what you are bringing.

Personal liability, which is rarely thought about and matters if you injure someone on a scooter.

Cover for natural disruption. Bali sits on an active volcanic and seismic zone, and ash clouds have grounded flights for days at a time.

Practical points

Keep every receipt and get an itemised invoice from any clinic. The international clinics in the south deal with insurers routinely and will often bill directly if you call the insurer first.

Call the insurer before treatment where the situation allows. Many policies require notification for anything beyond a minor consultation.

Photograph the policy and the emergency number and keep them offline on your phone.

Check the excess. A low premium with a high excess is not cheap when the claim is a 600-dollar clinic visit.

What this page is not

I am not an insurance adviser and policies vary enormously between countries and providers. This is the list of things worth reading in the wording before you buy, not a recommendation of any product.

Buying before you go, and extending

Buy the policy before you leave home. Most insurers will not cover a trip already under way, and the ones that do charge more and impose waiting periods.

If you extend your stay, extend the policy before it lapses rather than buying a new one, because a new policy usually excludes anything that started under the old one.

Long-stay travellers, remote workers and anyone here for months should look at expatriate or international health cover rather than travel insurance, which is designed for short trips and often caps out at 90 days per journey. For residents, the local options are a separate question covered in health insurance in Bali.

Two cheap habits that protect a claim

Photograph your policy and emergency number and keep them offline. And keep an itemised invoice for everything, because Indonesian clinics will provide one on request and insurers will ask for it.