Using WPDB->Insert()

Short answer, no. WPDB is a class that’s been around for a while (back when WP used to support PHP 4), and lacks a lot of features PHP5 drivers offer, including parameter binding.

As you mentioned, wpdb::insert is the closest you can get to your original code:

$wpdb->insert(
    'importtest',
    array(
        'id'      => $ID,
        'area'    => $area,
        'country' => $country,
    ),
    array(
        '%d',
        '%s',
        '%s',
    )   
);

It uses wpdb::prepare to escape the data, which works in a sprintf-type fashion, supporting integers (%d), floats (%f) and strings (%s):

$wpdb->prepare( "SELECT * FROM importtest WHERE area = %s", ' "foobar" ' );
// SELECT * FROM importtest WHERE area = " \"foobar\" "

Note that, like other driver prepare methods, there’s no need to quote the placeholder.