We do not travel outside our home province without having travel medical insurance.
My extended health benefits at work do include a small amount of travel medical insurance coverage, but IMO not enough (it would cover something "normal" but an extraordinary and very expensive say accident with stay in an ICU would rapidly eat it up) so I buy a separate plan myself.
One thing to keep in mind if you have any pre-existing conditions is most travel medical insurance will have a pre-existing condition exclusion clause that requires a period of "stability" for coverage for those conditions.
Because this is a concern for us I purchase an annual travel medical plan that lets me have unlimited trips outside my home province for upto 35 days each in length, with I think it is $5 million in coverage. the pre-existing condition stability period is 7 days, which was the best I could find without th price being insanely high. I went through an insurance broker online to purchase it -- and they have other plans as options too.
some of the more traditional plans, e.g. those you get through your bank or in the supermarket I have seen with p-e clauses requiring as much as 180 days (6 months !!!) stability.
So make sure you read the fine print.
For the
travel insurance part (cancellation, interruption, baggage loss/delay, baggage theft, etc) I have a credit card that includes this coverage as long as the whole trip is paid for through it. it also includes some medical coverage which is good if I get something new
SW