Travel insurance

What trip protection and travel medical cover, how they differ, and which companies offer them.

Companies: 6
Full profiles: 6
Comparisons: 10

The basics

How travel insurance works

Two quite different products are sold under the same name, and confusing them is the usual reason a traveler ends up with the wrong one.

This line in the database

Companies writing this line: 66 researched in full
Published comparisons: 10
Tools for this line: 2
Guides that apply: 7

Trip protection: Insures money. It reimburses what you have already paid and cannot get back when a trip is canceled, cut short or delayed, and it insures your luggage. The amount you insure is the amount of prepaid, non-refundable trip cost, and the covered reasons are a specific list in the policy.
Travel medical: Insures your body. It pays for treatment you need while you are away, and, far more importantly, for emergency medical evacuation and repatriation. It has nothing to do with your trip cost. Domestic health plans commonly provide little or no coverage abroad, and evacuation from a remote place is the kind of expense that a traveler cannot absorb.

Many policies bundle both. Whether you need both, one, or neither depends on what you are actually exposed to: money you would lose, or care you would need.

What you are buying

What the coverages do

Each of these is priced and limited separately, so it helps to read them as separate promises rather than as one policy.

Trip cancellation: Reimburses prepaid non-refundable costs when you cancel before departure for a reason the policy lists, such as illness, injury, death in the family, jury duty or a named event at your destination. A reason not on the list is not covered.
Trip interruption: Covers the unused portion of the trip and the cost of getting home early when something on the covered list happens after you have departed.
Travel delay: Pays for meals and accommodation once a delay passes a stated number of hours, up to a daily cap.
Emergency medical: Pays for treatment of an illness or injury that begins during the trip. It is not ongoing health insurance and it does not cover treatment you traveled in order to get.
Emergency medical evacuation and repatriation: Pays to move you to adequate care, or home, and to return remains in the event of death. This is the coverage that justifies the product for remote or expensive destinations, and the limit on it matters more than almost anything else on the certificate.
Baggage loss, damage and delay: Reimburses lost or damaged luggage, with per-item caps, and buys essentials when bags arrive late. It pays after the airline’s own liability, not instead of it.
Accidental death and dismemberment: A fixed payment for death or serious injury during travel. Often included, and rarely a reason to choose a policy.

Add-ons

Optional coverages you may be offered

Cancel for any reason, which relaxes the covered-reasons list at the cost of a higher premium, a reduced reimbursement share, a purchase deadline shortly after your first trip payment, and a requirement to cancel a set number of days before departure.
Interrupt for any reason, the equivalent once the trip has started, with the same style of conditions.
Pre-existing condition waiver, which removes the pre-existing condition exclusion if you buy within a short window of your first trip payment and insure the full trip cost. Missing that window is not fixable later.
Adventure or hazardous sports coverage, which buys back activities the base policy excludes.
Rental car damage, which can replace the counter waiver, though it may duplicate coverage your credit card already gives you.
Higher medical and evacuation limits, the upgrade that changes the most about what a plan would actually pay in a medical emergency abroad.
Annual multi-trip plans, for frequent travelers. These typically cover medical and delay rather than trip cost, so read what is actually inside.

Where cover stops

Common exclusions and limitations

The exclusions are where a policy is actually decided. These are the ones that come up most often on this line.

Pre-existing conditions are excluded by default. The policy defines a look-back period before the purchase date, and any condition that was treated, medicated, diagnosed or had a medication change during that window is excluded, including a stable condition you have had for years. A waiver removes this, but only if bought inside the stated window after your first trip payment.
Adventure activities are excluded on ordinary policies. Scuba diving below a stated depth, mountaineering, backcountry skiing, motorcycling, skydiving and similar activities need an explicit buy-back. This and the pre-existing condition rule are the two exclusions that surprise travelers most.
Changing your mind, or a fear of travel, is not a covered reason without cancel for any reason coverage.
Events that were already foreseeable when you bought, including a named storm already in existence or a travel advisory already issued, are excluded.
Epidemics, pandemics and government border closures are excluded on many policies, and the wording varies enormously between insurers.
Financial default of an airline or operator is excluded unless the policy names it.
Traveling against medical advice, and traveling for the purpose of treatment, are excluded.
Losses from intoxication or drug use are excluded.
Unattended belongings, and valuables such as electronics and jewelry, carry low caps or are excluded from baggage coverage.
Business and work travel may be excluded from a leisure policy.

Pricing inputs

What affects what you pay

01The trip cost you insure, which drives most of the premium on a trip protection plan.
02The age of each traveler, which drives most of the premium on a medical plan.
03Trip length and how many travelers are on the policy.
04Destination, including local healthcare cost and how remote it is.
05The medical and evacuation limits you choose.
06The deductible, on medical plans.
07Upgrades such as cancel for any reason and adventure sports.
08How soon after your first trip payment you buy, which affects eligibility more than price.

The process

How getting a quote generally works

In the order it usually happens. Nothing here is a quote, and this site does not sell one.

1
You enter destination, travel dates, the age of each traveler, your residency state and the prepaid non-refundable trip cost.
2
Trip cost and traveler ages determine the price.
3
Policies are typically refundable during a review period after purchase as long as you have not departed or filed a claim, so buying early to preserve the time-sensitive benefits does not lock you in.
4
Before buying, check what you already have. Credit cards often include trip delay, baggage and rental car benefits, some employers provide travel medical and evacuation cover, and your health plan may or may not follow you abroad. Buying what you already own is the most common waste in this category.

Glossary

Terminology

The words that appear on a quote or a policy for this line, in plain language.

Covered reason: An event on the policy’s list that triggers cancellation or interruption benefits. The list, not your judgment of what is reasonable, decides a claim.
Look-back period: The stretch of time before purchase that the insurer reviews for pre-existing conditions.
Time-sensitive benefits: Benefits available only if you buy within a set number of days of your first trip payment, which is where the pre-existing condition waiver and cancel for any reason usually live.
Primary versus secondary coverage: Primary pays first. Secondary pays only what your other insurance or the airline did not, which means filing twice and waiting longer.
Insured trip cost: The prepaid non-refundable amount you declared. Cancellation benefits cannot exceed it, so under-declaring to save premium caps your own payout.
Evacuation limit: The maximum the policy will spend moving you to care. It is a separate limit from the medical maximum.
Assistance services: The round-the-clock line that arranges care, guarantees payment to a hospital and coordinates an evacuation. In a real emergency this is the part of the product you actually use.

Before you buy

Questions worth asking before you buy

Ask these of an agent, or of yourself, before comparing two prices.

Do I need trip protection, travel medical, or both for this trip?
What is the medical maximum, and what is the separate evacuation limit?
Is the medical coverage primary or secondary?
What is the look-back period, and do I qualify for the pre-existing condition waiver?
By what date must I buy to keep the time-sensitive benefits?
Are the activities I have planned excluded, and can I buy them back?
Exactly which reasons are covered for cancellation, and is cancel for any reason worth it?
How does the policy treat epidemics, border closures and government advisories?
What do my credit card and my health plan already cover abroad?
What is the emergency assistance number, and does it operate in my destination?

Who writes it

Companies that write this insurance

Every profile is built from the company's own documentation and from regulators, with the source and the date beside each fact.

All companies

Side by side

Comparisons for this line

A pair is published only where enough fields are verified for both companies to make the comparison worth reading. No comparison names a winner.

All comparisons

Free tools

Tools for this line

Each one shows its arithmetic and its assumptions. None of them produces a premium, a quote or a savings figure.

Tool

Insurance company comparison

Put two companies side by side on the facts we have verified, with the source for each one and an explicit gap where we have not verified something.

Open tool

Tool

Travel insurance needs wizard

Answer seven questions about a trip and see which travel coverage categories to ask about, with the two exclusions travellers most often find out about too late.

Open tool

Guides

Guides that apply here

All guides

Guide

How to read an insurance policy without reading all of it

A policy is four kinds of document stapled together. Knowing which part answers which question lets you check the things that decide a claim without reading the whole contract.

Read the guide

Guide

What a deductible actually costs you

A deductible is not a one-time cost. How it resets, how many can apply at once and whether it is a flat amount or a share of a limit all change what you are exposed to.

Read the guide

Guide

What insurance companies mean by an exclusion

Exclusions are not fine print bolted on to a policy. They are how coverage is defined, and there are only a few reasons any of them exist.

Read the guide

Guide

How to compare two insurance companies fairly

Most comparisons are unfair by accident, because the two things being held up against each other were never the same thing. Here is how to make them comparable first.

Read the guide

Guide

What to do when a claim is denied

A denial is a decision with a stated reason, and the reason determines what you can do about it. Work out which kind you received before you argue with anyone.

Read the guide

Guide

Pre-existing conditions in pet and travel insurance

Both products exclude conditions that existed before you bought, both define that in their own words, and in both cases the definition is read out of records you already have.

Read the guide

Guide

Why the same coverage costs different amounts for different people

Identical coverage carries different prices because insurers are not pricing the coverage. They are pricing the expected cost of the risk behind it, and that is assembled from categories of factor.

Read the guide

Go to the source