Travel insurance while spending 4 months in the US?

I was in a tricky position when I went on my J-1 visa too. As you've noted, you can't insure locally as a resident. I also had some extremely high-risk existing health conditions, which often makes insurance companies run a mile.

I ended up having to survey most of the high quality insurance companies in NZ (where I lived) and eventually found one that would cover it, albeit with a high excess.

This was well pre-internet comparison sites and required phoning most of them, and you couldn't specify individual items or components (Eg non-medical) like you're after.

However, these days with comparethemarket and other such UK sites, you may be able to do so. I've seen ones which just cover luggage, and many credit cards will provide basic cover (missed flights etc) if you book your flight with them.

You'll also be noticing the higher cost for travel insurance to North America - this is unavoidable, unfortunately, especially if medical is involved in the policy, most providers tend to group it separately from the rest of the world because of the prices.

The purpose of travel insurance is evacuation insurance. If you get hit by a truck in Chad or Phnom Penh, you don't want to be treated locally -- and you don't want to pay the $50,000 or $100,000 out of pocket it would cost to get an air-ambulance to a First World hospital.

But if you get hit by a truck in Boston -- a reasonable possibility, Bostonians are famously terrible drivers -- you might as well be treated in Boston.

"Trip-interruption" insurance is bullshit. You should only insure against expenses you cannot afford out-of-pocket, and if you cannot afford a ticket home, you shouldn't be traveling.

As for medical insurance, if you aren't covered by your employer -- well, buy medical insurance. The insurer doesn't care about your visa status; you could be illegal for all they care.

Travel insurance seems to be a European thing. Most Americans don't buy it at all other than for specific situations like elderly people who have health issues that might flare up. My advice is to forget about it. If some bit of your travel gets screwed up, it'll get screwed up. But more likely, things will work more or less as planned and you can use the money you would have wasted on insurance on stuff you really want.