Every travel insurance plan I have seen requires that coverage start the day you leave your home province. If one leaves AB and spends a month in other provinces before crossing to the USA, the insurance would be invalid. AHCIP would cover you for the month but your 6 month travel insurance must begin the day you leave AB. If you have a plan that does not state that, I would like to know who provides that so I could get a quote from them. We have had 2 claims against our travel insurance in the past. In both cases (different companies) the first thing we had to prove before they accepted the claim, was the exact date that we left our home province.