Nomad Essential vs Nomad Complete: what each plan actually covers
SafetyWing's Nomad products cover people living, working, and/or traveling outside their home country. Whether you're covered for checkups, cancer and maternity, or only for emergencies depends on which plan you hold. Here we compare Nomad Essential and Nomad Complete, the two plans people most often mix up. (If you're looking for health, income and travel protection in one membership, see Nomad Citizen.)
Nomad Essential is travel medical coverage for new, unexpected illness and injury while you travel, from US$62.72 per 4 weeks (ages 18–39). Nomad Complete is global health coverage for life abroad, and it includes routine and preventive care, mental health, maternity (after a 10-month waiting period) and cancer treatment, at US$177.50 a month (ages 18–39). Neither plan has a deductible.
If you're on a trip, you need cover for what might go wrong. A broken wrist in Chiang Mai, food poisoning in Oaxaca, a flight that leaves without your bag.
If you're living somewhere, you also need the things that happen on schedule. A yearly checkup, a pregnancy, and treatment for a newfound illness that runs for months. Complete was built for that.
Most of the confusion we see comes from people buying Essential and expecting Complete. We'd rather you know the difference before you need it.
What Nomad Essential covers
Essential covers medical treatment for illness and injury that starts after your plan does, up to US$250,000 per plan, plus the travel problems that come with moving between countries. You can buy it before you leave or after you've already landed, and it bills every 4 weeks until you cancel.
What's covered:
Medical treatment and hospitalisation for new, unexpected illness or injury, up to US$250,000 per plan
Emergency evacuation to a better-equipped hospital, up to US$100,000 over your lifetime
Emergency dental up to US$1,000
Leisure sports and activities (the full list is on our FAQ page)
Motor accidents, if you're properly licensed for the vehicle, wearing a helmet or seatbelt, and sober
Travel protection: trip interruption, travel delay (US$60 for a 3–8 hour delay), lost checked luggage (US$500 per item) and evacuation from local unrest (US$10,000 lifetime)
Scooters and motorbikes. Anything up to 50cc is covered on the standard plan. Above 50cc, as rider or passenger, you need the Adventure Sports add-on, and the licence and helmet rules still apply. No licence for that class of vehicle means no cover for the accident, add-on or not.
What's not covered. Essential is not full health insurance, and we'd rather say that plainly than have you find out at a clinic. It does not cover:
Routine checkups, screenings or vaccines
Maternity
Cancer treatment
Mental health treatment
Pre-existing conditions (the definition is below)
Essential isn't for you if… you want to see a doctor when nothing is wrong, you're planning a pregnancy, or you've stopped travelling and settled in one place. Any of those points you to Complete.
Essential in action: a 3-month Southeast Asia loop. You fly into Bangkok with a rough plan: a month in Thailand, a month across Laos and Vietnam, a few weeks in Bali, then home. You're healthy, you have no doctor visits planned, and you want to be able to rent a scooter without thinking too hard. Essential at US$62.72 per 4 weeks (ages 18–39) covers the broken ankle, the dengue, the lost bag and the flight home if you have a family emergency. Add the Adventure Sports add-on for US$10 per 4 weeks if the scooter is bigger than 50cc, and bring your motorcycle licence. Essential would be good enough for this trip.
What Nomad Complete adds
Complete is health coverage with travel protection attached, rather than the other way round. It covers you in 175 countries, including the country you live in, for a 12-month term you can renew for as long as you need it. The annual limit is US$1,500,000. There is no deductible and no co-insurance.
Everything on the Essential list is in Complete, plus the care that keeps a life abroad running:
Preventive care up to US$350 a year: routine checkups, screenings and vaccines
Outpatient care up to US$5,000 a year: doctor and specialist visits, such as a dermatologist or gynaecologist
Diagnostics, prescription medication and physiotherapy, when medically necessary
Mental health: 10 outpatient visits a year with a psychologist, psychiatrist or licensed therapist, counted inside the US$5,000 outpatient limit, plus inpatient mental health treatment
Maternity up to US$2,500 for routine care during pregnancy, labour and the first 30 days after birth, after a 10-month waiting period
Cancer treatment, including chemotherapy, radiation and medication, up to the US$1,500,000 annual limit
Hospital stays, surgery, nursing care, ambulance and extended care after hospital
Extra travel protection: trip cancellation, stolen belongings and burglary, on top of what Essential offers
Planned treatment on a listed procedure that will cost more than US$500 (hospital admissions, surgery, scans, ongoing mental health visits) needs pre-approval through your dashboard; skip that step and reimbursement can be 30% lower. For planned treatment costing US$250 or more, you can also ask us to pay the provider directly, with at least 7 business days' notice.
Coverage in the US, Hong Kong and Singapore is limited to 30 days of emergency care unless you buy the add-on for those countries. You can sign up until age 64, add a partner and children during sign-up (kids' plans cost up to 35% less), and pay monthly or annually.
Complete isn't for you if… you're away for a few weeks or months and heading home afterwards, you want to stop and start coverage as you go, or your country of residence is one Complete can't cover (see below). For a trip, Essential does the job for well under half the price.
Complete in action: a year in Mexico City with a partner. You've signed a 12-month lease in Roma Norte. One of you wants to keep seeing a therapist. You'd both like a checkup and your vaccines topped up, and a baby is somewhere on the horizon. Complete at US$177.50 a month each (ages 18–39, 12-month plan) gives you the checkups under the US$350 preventive limit, the therapy visits under the outpatient limit, cancer and hospital cover up to US$1,500,000 a year, and maternity up to US$2,500 once the 10-month waiting period has passed. Start the plan in January and maternity benefits apply from November. Complete would be the plan for this year.
Nomad Essential vs Nomad Complete, side by side
Nomad Essential
Nomad Complete
What it is
Travel medical coverage
Global health coverage for life abroad
Price (ages 18–39)
From US$62.72 per 4 weeks
US$177.50 a month
Commitment
Up to 364 days, billed every 4 weeks, cancel anytime; or pay upfront for 364 days at a 10% discount
12 months, renewable indefinitely
Buy while abroad
Yes, starts right away
Yes, starts on the 1st or 15th after approval
Overall limit
US$250,000 per plan
US$1,500,000 a year
Deductible
None
None
Routine and preventive care
Not covered
Up to US$350 a year
Outpatient care
Covered for new, unexpected issues, up to the US$250,000 limit
Up to US$5,000 a year
Mental health
Not covered
10 outpatient visits a year, inpatient included
Maternity
Not covered
Up to US$2,500, after a 10-month waiting period
Cancer treatment
Not covered
Up to US$1,500,000 a year
Emergency dental
Up to US$1,000
Up to US$1,000 (routine dental as an add-on)
Home country
Emergencies only, on short visits
No restrictions
Where it works
180+ countries, US extra
175 countries; US, Hong Kong and Singapore limited without add-on
Pre-existing conditions
Not covered
Not covered
Age to sign up
From 14 days old to age 69
18 to 64 for the main member; partners and children can be added at sign-up
Prices for ages 18–39, last verified October 2026.
What neither plan covers: pre-existing conditions
Neither plan covers pre-existing conditions, but each plan defines the term differently.
On Essential, a condition is pre-existing if, in the 180 days before your start date, you received or were recommended medical advice or treatment for it, had medication prescribed or changed for it, or had symptoms a reasonable person would have seen a doctor about. We don't ask medical questions when you buy; the definition is applied if you claim. After 364 consecutive days of cover, the lookback stops applying to new plans, except for conditions expected to worsen over time.
On Complete, a condition is pre-existing if you have ever been diagnosed with or treated for it, or if you've had symptoms of it in the last 2 years.
So a knee you had surgery on five years ago and haven't thought about since is fine on Essential and excluded on Complete. A back that started hurting three months ago is excluded on both. The full wording is in the pre-existing conditions FAQ.
Home country coverage
Essential covers emergencies during short visits home once your plan has been active for 90 days. On the 4-week billing plan, that's up to 30 days per visit within a rolling 90-day period, or 15 days if your home country is the US. On the 364-day single-payment plan, it's up to 90 days per visit (45 if your home is the US), to a total of 179 days a year. The visit has to start from abroad, and it can't be for treatment of something that happened while you were travelling. Stay longer than the limit, and cover pauses until you leave again.
Complete has no home-country restrictions: you're covered where you live and wherever you travel. The limit is on which countries you can name as your country of residence. The US and its territories, Canada, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates and Russia can't be selected, and the eligibility list on our FAQ page is worth checking before you apply. You can still travel to the US, Hong Kong and Singapore on Complete, with 30 days of emergency coverage included and more available as an add-on.
Will either plan satisfy a visa?
It depends on the visa. Digital nomad and residency visas each set their own insurance requirements, and some ask for a locally authorised insurer or a specific minimum coverage limit. SafetyWing can't guarantee that either plan will be accepted for a particular visa, because that decision is made by the issuing country's immigration authorities.
Before you buy, check the requirements with the embassy or immigration office. Our support team can then help you understand what each plan covers so you can compare it against those requirements. Once you have an active plan, a visa letter is available from your dashboard. As a general guide, short-stay visas that ask for travel medical cover tend to line up more closely with Essential, while residency visas that ask for health insurance tend to line up more closely with Complete. The FAQ page explains how to get proof of insurance for an application.
Switching from Essential to Complete
Start a new Complete plan from your dashboard. Once it's approved, your Essential plan is cancelled automatically and the unused days are refunded, as long as you have no open claims. Applications take up to 10 days, and Complete coverage starts on the 1st or 15th of the month, whichever comes first after approval. If the application isn't approved, your Essential plan carries on unchanged.
The 10-month maternity waiting period starts on your Complete start date, so if a family is in the plan, switch early.
