ISOS Memo

International SOS Emergency Insurance

Dual Degree Program students are covered by International SOS (ISOS), an emergency services insurance program that supplements your regular health insurance. While ISOS’s services do not include and cannot take the place of traditional health insurance, ISOS provides worldwide assistance in the event of an emergency that requires special evacuation and repatriation services or immediate medical intervention. This is the kind of insurance one hopes never to use or to need, but that you should have in case of a real emergency.

ISOS services include:

  • Pre-trip information on travel health issues (including questions about your prescriptions)
  • On-site physician recommendations
  • Online travel security information
  • Emergency message transmission     
  • Emergency evacuation
  • Medically-supervised repatriation

In addition to the services noted above, International SOS offers Enhanced Emotional Support Services, which include up to five free counseling sessions (per academic year) with a certified mental health practitioner while abroad. These sessions can take place via phone, VTC/Skype, or where available, in person.

All Columbia University students, faculty, and staff are required to register their travel outside of the United States through the ISOS My Trips website, and to keep their travel information up-to-date throughout their affiliation with the University. This requirement applies to Dual Degree Program students and includes your time at TAU, including any short-term travel you take while in Israel.

ISOS is the world's largest medical and security assistance company, maintaining health clinics and remote-site medical facilities across five continents.

All students in the Dual Degree Program will have their time in Israel automatically registered in ISOS My Trips. However, students who travel to other international locations outside of the United States as part of an official Dual Degree trip (whether through Tel Aviv University or Columbia), are required to register that travel in ISOS manually, using the instructions below.

Once you have finalized your travel plans, please visit Columbia's Global Travel website. You will be able to access your traveler profile using your Columbia University UNI. All Dual Degree Program students are required to log all international trips affiliated with their TAU studies in the “My Trips” portal, aside from their residence in Tel Aviv in years one and two of the Dual Degree Program.

Each time that you book a trip while you are abroad, you must visit the My Trips site and input your travel information there. This information is used only in the case of an emergency, whether it be a personal health emergency, a political emergency, or a natural disaster. You should use Columbia's Global Travel website to read more about your travel destination, either within Israel or elsewhere in the world.

If you are interested in learning more about the services offered by ISOS, please review the Columbia University Global Assistance page. If you have further questions beyond what you find on the website, please contact your academic advisor at the School of General Studies for more information.

Once you have completed your My Trips registration, please certify that you have completed the mandatory My Trips registration as required by Columbia University by visiting the Dual Degree Program website.

Although ISOS offers travel, medical, and security advice and services, as well as online access to information that many insurance companies do not offer, ISOS is not health insurance. ISOS services cannot take the place of enrollment in Israeli health insurance, which is required for years one and two of the Dual Degree Program.