Parents visiting Israel: which travel health insurance?

Are your parents or grandparents coming to visit you in Israel? The direct answer: yes, they need specific travel health insurance, and the age of the insured person concretely changes the terms of the contract, sometimes far more than you would imagine.

Why travel health insurance is essential for your relatives

A foreign visitor in Israel, even if staying with family at your home, is not covered by the Israeli health system: neither by the universal "basket of services" reserved for residents, nor by your own kupat holim (health fund), which cannot be extended to a relative passing through. In the event of a health problem during the stay, without insurance, medical and hospitalisation costs remain the family's responsibility, potentially at the rate of a private hospital or a consultation outside the contracted system.

Age changes (almost) everything in a travel insurance contract

This is the point most often underestimated: beyond a certain age, travel health insurance is not simply "more expensive", it sometimes works under different rules. As a concrete example, the general terms of a health insurance policy for tourists in Israel (Ayalon Insurance, September 2025) provide for a maximum period of cover that depends directly on the age of the insured person: up to age 65, the cover period can be up to 365 days, whereas between 66 and 75 it is limited to a maximum of 60 days. This is only an example, specific to that insurer and that particular contract, but it illustrates well a principle found, in various forms, with many insurers: the older the insured person, the shorter the insurable length of stay tends to be, and the tighter the conditions for access to insurance become.

Beyond a certain age, the maximum period of cover for a stay can be markedly shorter than for a younger traveller, depending on the contract. This is something to check systematically before fixing the length of your parents' or grandparents' stay.

Hospitalisation: what a tourist policy provides in practice

Again as an example with the Ayalon terms of September 2025, cover for hospitalisation costs is defined there as the medical expenses linked to a hospitalisation occurring during the insurance period, within a maximum duration of 90 days and the limits set by the policy. Outpatient care, consultations, tests and medication outside hospitalisation, are reimbursed up to a separate maximum amount, provided for separately in the contract. This kind of detail, specific to each insurer, explains why two apparently similar policies can in fact offer very different protection in the event of a prolonged hospitalisation.

Another practical point to know if your parents' or grandparents' stay were to be extended: an extension of the cover period is generally not automatic. Still according to the same type of contract, extending travel health insurance requires the insurer's agreement and, often, a new medical questionnaire, the extension then being treated as a brand new policy. It is therefore better to anticipate the real length of the stay than to count on a simple last-minute extension.

Pre-existing medical conditions: what to anticipate

The older a person gets, the higher the likelihood of having a "pre-existing medical condition", that is, a health problem already diagnosed before the contract was taken out. Returning to the Ayalon terms cited above, a pre-existing condition is defined there as a set of medical circumstances diagnosed before the insurance was put in place, including through a documented prognosis or a diagnostic process begun in the preceding six months. In practice, this means that ongoing treatment for high blood pressure, diabetes or a monitored heart condition must, in general, be declared, and will be treated differently from a completely new medical emergency occurring during the stay.

Depending on the insurer, a pre-existing condition may be excluded outright, covered for an extra premium after a detailed medical questionnaire, or covered partially for the acute complications only of a known condition. There is no universal rule on this: that is precisely what makes comparing contracts important before bringing over a parent or grandparent who is on regular treatment.

The medical questionnaire: better to be honest

Most travel health insurance for visitors requires a medical questionnaire to be filled in before the policy is taken out. Here again, the Ayalon general terms illustrate a general principle followed by the industry: an incomplete or dishonest answer to a question about an important matter may allow the insurer to cancel the policy, or to reduce compensation in proportion to what a prudent insurer would have accepted had it known the real facts. In other words, concealing a known condition to get faster acceptance can turn against the family at the very moment when it most needs to be covered, in a real emergency.

How to choose the right cover for your parents or grandparents

A few simple reflexes before booking their ticket:

Every family situation is different, between a grandparent in great shape who comes for ten days and a parent on several treatments staying for a month. A broker can help you compare offers suited to your relatives' real age and state of health, rather than choosing a generic cover at random. Our travel insurance page presents the main types of cover to know about before you decide.