One of the more common questions that we sometimes get from blog readers and podcast listeners is whether or not we buy travel insurance and whether we have any recommendations for the insurance that people should consider. Travel insurance is a topic about which some people have very passionate opinions, but over the last couple of decades, I’ve almost never purchased it. A large part of the reason I haven’t purchased travel insurance is because of the protections offered by many of the credit cards I use to book travel. However, I have recently been considering an annual insurance policy to complement my credit card protections, so I wanted to take a look at some of the reasons to consider it and some of the things that I will personally be looking for in a travel insurance policy.
That said, any insurance policy is only as good as its claims process. That can be difficult to judge without the misfortune of needing to file a claim. I don’t mean this post to be a recommendation, but rather a look at why I am suddenly considering a different stance than the one I’ve mostly held for my decade in the hobby and what I’m considering as a result.
Credit cards offer some core protections
Several ultra-premium credit cards include trip cancellation or interruption protection, trip delay protection, and baggage protection benefits (along with things like car rental collision damage waiver and travel accident insurance). We have a full guide to ultra-premium credit card travel protections with more details about what is included and which part(s) of a trip need to be paid with the card in order to activate those protections.
For years, most of my flight bookings have gone on a credit card that offered excellent trip delay and cancellation protection. Most of my hotel bookings have historically been made using hotel points or flexible rates that offer for free cancellation until close to check-in. I had to make use of trip delay protection once, and my claim was successful. Recently, I’ve had to utilize trip cancellation protection, and again my credit card protection came to the rescue.
Travel insurance wouldn’t be worthwhile to me for the purposes of those types of protections. Some travel insurances include the ability to add on “cancel for any reason” coverage, though those tend to be significantly more expensive.
Medical emergencies are an area where credit card protections are relatively weak, though not completely absent.
Thankfully, we’ve never faced a major medical emergency while traveling. However, I’ve taken some comfort knowing that my wife and I both hold Amex Platinum cards, which include emergency medical evacuation coverage with no limit (subject to their claims approval process, of course). You don’t need to have booked any part of your trip with the Amex Platinum card to get that coverage; you just need to be a cardholder. You do need to go through Amex to coordinate that emergency evacuation, so just as with any insurance, the quality of the benefit depends on your experience making use of it when an emergency strikes. Thankfully, I don’t have personal experience with emergency medical evacuation, but I do have a friend whose father had to be evacuated from a cruise ship, and Amex did cover the (substantial) bill, though in their case, they did report needing to push back a bit and advocate for themselves with Amex. View from the Wing famously covered a case around a decade ago where Amex covered a $275,000 emergency evacuation bill for a cardholder. Nonetheless, I’ve seen many folks strongly advocate in favor of a dedicated emergency medical evacuation policy through a company like Medjets. Personally, that isn’t a priority for me, though I understand why it is for some folks.
Beyond evacuation coverage, the Chase Sapphire Reserve card does include up to $2,500 in emergency medical services coverage. That obviously isn’t going to cover a major medical emergency, but it would have been enough to have easily covered the more situations we’ve encountered over the years of our travels, which have included things like a trip to an emegency room in South Africa for my wife’s double ear infections (which cost us just over $100), a telemedicine visit with a French pediatrician to get a prescription when our son broke out in hives (which cost us around $60), a visit to a doctor’s office in Dubai when an injury wasn’t healing properly (again around $100), and an emergency dentail visit in Ecuador (which cost around $50 if memory serves me correctly). Those were all very minor situations, and I didn’t even make an insurance claim for any of them.
However, credit card insurance tends to lack any serious amount of emergency medical coverage beyond emergency evacuation, and there are potential gaps in both inclusions and exclusions that might make travel insurance worth considering.
Arguments for travel insurance
The core argument for travel insurance tends to be coverage for catastrophic medical situations, like if you’re in a car crash or some other type of major accident that leads to injuries that require long-term care in a hospital overseas. Most credit cards do not offer substantial medical expense coverage. Additionally, many folks of more advanced age have a variety of other health and medical care-related concerns that wouldn’t be addressed by credit card coverages.
Separate from health concerns, there are differences in limitations of coverage that you might need to consider. For instance, while credit card insurance often covers trip cancellation due to sickness, injury, or death of the cardholder or a traveling companion or family member, the definition of a qualifying family member may be limited to more immediate family members like siblings, parents, or children. A sickness or death in your extended family may or may not be covered by your credit card insurance.
For instance, the Trip Cancellation protection section of the Bilt Palladium card’s guide to benefits defines a family member the following way:
Family Member means a spouse, Domestic Partner, or unmarried
dependent children up to nineteen (19) years of age (or under age
twenty-six (26) if a full-time student at an accredited college or
university).
However, one travel insurance policy I have considered includes a broader definition of family member that might be important:
Family Member means Your husband or wife; birth or
adoptive parent, child or sibling; stepparent; stepchild;
stepbrother, or stepsister; father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-inlaw, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law;
grandparent or grandchild; and spouse of a grandparent or
grandchild.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve guide to benefits includes an even broader definition of a Family Member:
Family Member – an individual’s: spouse or Domestic Partner, and
parents thereof; sons and daughters, including adopted children
and stepchildren; legal guardians or wards; parents, including
stepparents; brothers and sisters; grandparents and grandchildren;
aunts or uncles; nieces or nephews; spouses or Domestic Partners
of any individual of this definition
Distinctions like those matter, and whether the credit card you use covers your needs or a dedicated policy may be more appropriate will vary from one person to another and from one coverage area or set of limits/exclusions to another.
While I generally avoid nonrefundable bookings, I’ve made more of those over the past couple of years. And I have sometimes used multiple different cards to pay for different components of a trip, which can complicate trip cancellation coverage. A dedicated travel insurance policy would potentially simplify the claims process.
There are also situations where hotel policy indicates that they will return the points and charge a cash rate when canceling within the penalty window. I recently had a conversation about that with Pauline Frommer. You’ll have to check the details of your policy for coverage.
Deciding what matters really requires a dive into the details and a look at your own personal circumstances, but the point is that there are gaps in credit card coverage where a dedicated policy might make more sense. What those gaps are and which matter varies so much depending on which credit cards and which concerns you have and wish to cover that it is impossible to get a one-size-fits-all recommendation.
Why my family is considering an annual trip insurance policy
For starters, thanks to the flexibility of my job and the opportunities afforded by miles and points, my family travels quite a bit each year. As a parent with two young kids, I’ve had experience canceling trips at the last minute multiple times due to unexpected illness. Luckily, in most of those situations, we’ve still been within the free cancellation period for the components of the trips we had booked, or we’ve had travel providers that were willing to work with us and offer extra flexibility.
Because we travel so much, insuring individual trips would quickly become prohibitively expensive. Instead, I have been somewhat drawn to the idea of an annual/multi-trip policy.
While we don’t generally make very many non-refundable travel plans, we’ve run into a growing number of those types of non-refundable situations in the last few years. For instance, last year we visited Santa Claus Holiday Village in Rovaniemi, Finland during December last year. The hotel isn’t part of a chain (we were not using hotel rewards), and high-season reservations (even made almost a year in advance) are completely nonrefundable. Similarly, we have travel plans in Europe this summer that involve stops specifically designed for the kids that are completely inflexible. If we had to cancel those plans, we would lose a significant chunk of money.
In addition to the typical risks of kids getting sick, my wife and I are fortunate to have numerous family members of advanced age. Coverage to cancel a trip for a family health emergency is important. While that may be covered by credit card insurance, we had a trip that we had to cancel/modify where the card we used for parts of the trip didn’t cover the right selection of family members.
Insurance coverage can be looked at as a bet on things going wrong. If your trip goes as planned, you lose the bet on insurance. I don’t often prefer to bet against myself, and I tend to think of the purpose of insurance as being to cover losses I may not otherwise be able to afford. At the same time, we have quite a bit of travel planned over the next year. Given the volume of travel we do, the realist in me knows that there is probably an above-average chance that we could run into one or more situations that could be covered by travel insurance (whether it be those trip delay and cancellation type situations that could alternatively be covered with credit cards, mileage redeposit fees, or medical coverages).
Initially, I was additionally curious whether it might be possible to include an additional family member on an annual policy. My mother-in-law has been accompanying us on more and more trips. We love having her explore with us, but a fall while abroad last year that luckily only ended up in some bad bruising certainly made me consider whether it would make sense to have some coverage for her in case of a medical emergency.
To jump ahead to the answer to that question, the annual policies at which I’ve looked only allow for covering members of your household. If you have an additional family member living with you, then it is possible to include them on your insurance. If you don’t live together, you would need to buy separate policies.
Nonetheless, depending on cost, I thought that an annual plan might make sense for my family after all.
Factors I’m considering
Some of the more important factors I am considering when it comes to an annual travel insurance plan include:
- Is there coverage for frequent flyer mile redeposit fees? Some insurance policies cover the cost to cancel an award ticket and redeposit it; others explicitly exclude this type of situation.
- For the purposes of things like trip cancellation/interruption, how broad is the definition of a “family member”? For my wife and, the inclusion of family members like aunts, uncles, and grandparents are important.
- Which coverages are primary and which are secondary? Note that this may not always matter as secondary coverage may become primary in situations where you dont have other coverage
- How much coverage is provided? This is obvious, but the amount of emergency medical coverage or trip cancellation coverage is obviously material to the decision.
The above isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list of considerations. Things like exclusions, policy effective date, and additional definitions beyond “family member” may be of critical importance. To effectively shop for insurance, there is no real shortcut around the need to actually do a lot of reading of policy documents.
I would add a word of warning to be careful about relying on AI to do the reading for you. I specifically prompted AI with things like the fact that I am a New York resident, and it initially gave me policy recommendations for companies that exclude New York residents. I would be cautious about shortcuts if the coverage matters.
As a New York resident, my options are limited
In searching for travel insurance, I quickly found out that a number of popular travel insurance companies don’t sell plans (or specifically don’t sell annual plans) to residents of New York State. That immediately limited my options.
Quite a few travel insurance companies do offer single-trip coverage to New York State residents. However, as someone who travels quite a bit, single-trip insurance policies would quickly become too expensive.
Of the options I did have, exclusions/inclusions really made the key decisions for me.
I was particularly surprised to find that the sample coverage document provided by American Express for the travel insurance they sell to card members expressly excludes trips booked using “frequent flyer points”, including those transferred to Amex partners. Here was the wording:
3. When a Covered Person purchases a Covered
Trip with Frequent Flyer Points or other travel
credits
Benefits under this Certificate are available only for
travel expenses paid for in cash or the equivalent to
cash, such as through use of a credit or debit card, or
when American Express Membership Rewards Points
are used in the Pay with Points program. Benefits are
not available for travel purchased with travel award
credits such as frequent flyer points issued by
Scheduled Airlines, vouchers or coupons issued by
hotels or rental car companies or similar programs,
including such credits purchased by exchanging
American Express Membership Rewards Points for
such credits.
The Amex coverage only extended to cash bookings. On the flip side, an annual policy from Allianz actually covers mileage re-deposit fees within trip cancellation coverage:
FREQUENT TRAVELER/LOYALTY PROGRAM COVERAGE
If You used frequent traveler awards (frequent flyers miles or
hotel rewards) for any part of a Trip, the Company will pay the
fees incurred by You for re-depositing those awards in Your
account if the Trip is canceled for any of the reasons under
Trip Cancellation and Interruption Coverage.
Please refer to Your Letter of Confirmation for the maximum
coverage amount available under Your plan.
Differences like that one really narrowed down my choice to which Allianz policy appealed the most. I simply didn’t find many options for an annual plan for New York residents that had limitations that fit my needs. I would certainly be open to reader recommendations, as I haven’t made a final decision here. However, Allianz seems to be the best fit for my needs as far as I’ve seen.
Allianz offers several annual plans that can fit my needs
Ultimately, the best option for my situation is probably going to be an Allianz annual plan. Allianz annual plans are going to vary in cost and coverage based on factors like where you live, the age of travelers you’re covering, the number of travelers, and whether you’re looking at single-trip or multi-trip plans. I wanted to buy an annual plan, so I quoted plan options for my family of four.
A downside of the Allianz plans I am considering is that there isn’t as much customization available as I may like. One thing I did like about the American Express Travel Insurance quote tool is that it provides the opportunity to “Build your own” coverage, choosing how much coverage you want.
By contrast, the only part of the Allianz annual plans seem customizable is the amount of trip cancellation coverage.
That said, the Allianz policies include most of the coverages I want. I quoted a year-long plan for my family of four, and Allianz provided 3 plan options for us (note that these were likely specific to my situation with regard to number of travelers, ages, residence, etc, so don’t assume that your own quotes will be the same):
It is important to check the link for plan pricing and details. The summaries shown above don’t include a lot of detail, but the plan pricing and details link near the top offers a far more detailed explanation of coverages.
Note that the plans above have low trip cancellation coverage. There is a link immediately below the trip cancellation coverage to change the trip cancellation limits of the above policies. The Premier policy on the right side appealed to me most. Trip cancellation coverage could be customized to include up to $15,000 in coverage on my quote for the Premier plan, at least in my case. Again, note that details are important, so read carefully. The Premier Plan on the right offers an amount of trip cancellation per policy per year. In other words, that’s the total amount of trip cancellation coverage over the course of the year, whereas the Executive Plan on the left is displaying the amount of coverage per insured traveler.
Coverage needs will obviously vary from person to person. In my case, since most of my travel will usually be booked with a credit card that includes trip cancellation coverage, I’m comfortable with a relatively low amount of cancellation coverage. I may want more than the $2,000 shown above, but I would probably be comfortable with $5,000 in trip cancellation coverage for our situation. Meanwhile, the $50,000 of emergency medical coverage per insured per trip and $500,000 of emergency medical transportation coverage per insured per trip appeal to me in that Premier plan in case of a true emergency. I’m less concerned about baggage insurance or travel delay insurance since I never book flights without a card that includes coverage for those things.
I want to be clear that I am still undecided as to whether to even buy a travel insurance policy, and I’m not yet sold on a specific policy.
There are aspects of the Allianz policy above that aren’t a perfect fit. For instance, the Allianz definition of a family member does not include an aunt or uncle. If one of our aunts or uncles became sick, I don’t expect that trip cancellation coverage from one of these policies would cover us. That’s one small thing that I point out because it happens to be top of mind for my family. It may not matter at all to you, but I point it out as an example of the type of detail that you need to consider before you buy a policy. You want to know in advance what is covered rather than being surprised by what isn’t when you need to make a claim.
At the same time, I do like that the Allianz policy appears to cover mileage redeposit fees. That would make me more comfortable booking with a program that has high award cancellation fees. And if I split the cost of the annual Premier plan over the number of trips we tend to take per year, the medical coverage alone is probably worth it for my family given that our standard health insurance wouldn’t cover us while overseas, and we do tend to take a numner of itnernational trips every year.
Bottom line
Historically, I haven’t seriously considered buying travel insurance. I did buy an annual policy once (I believe I bought one primarily for a trip we took in the later stages of my wife’s first pregnancy), but I have mostly relied on credit card protections for years. However, I’ve recently been reconsidering my stance and thinking about travel insurance again. For better or worse, my comparison shopping options were pretty limited as a New York State resident. Still, I found some policies for a reasonable cost that I might consider for the purpose of covering gaps in credit card insurance, like medical emergencies and a wider net of inclusions for coverage.
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I think readers need to know, even if one purchases a policy and charges the trip on CC with coverage, if you need to make a claim, only one will pay out. These insurers require one to sign affidavit that only that insurer is paying out coverage. In other words, there isn’t any stacking of coverages.
On, and on, and on, and on. Please get to the point.
Sure, the point is if it’s too long for your attention span, might be best to skip it entirely and save yourself the aggravation 🙂
Excellent advice. If I only knew that before wading through the entire message.
We always just book everything refundable even though it costs more, but recently have been finding the best hotels don’t offer cancellations within 2 weeks or so. But the main reason I recently bought insurance was just for my husband to have medical insurance while traveling. Our health insurance policies always had that coverage but he was just forced onto Medicare which doesn’t. I found it surprising how low medical coverage was on many of the “travel” plans. Ended up getting one with $1m medical coverage and very little travel coverage. Those are quite inexpensive.
Thanks for this article. I have had multiple experiences making claims for cancelled travel. In my experience some credit cards will not accept claims for the non-refundable price of guided tours and cruises (since they aren’t considered “common carriers”). Please consider opining on annual coverage v. single trip coverage where a high percentage of the trip costs are for guided tours or cruises.
I am 77 and my wife is 75. As a result, we are excluded from coverage on most credit card insurance claims because of our age. We bought a limited travel insurance policy through Manulife for a two week period. When we went to Hawaii at Christmas time. I poolside my wife tripped and fell and face planted. There was lots of blood and it wasn’t pretty. Fortunately, the only injury was the fact that she had bit through her bottom lip I need stitches both inside and outside of her mouth.
The treatment she received at the hospital in Kahului was exemplary! It was quick and thorough. Unfortunately, filing a claim was not that easy. The hospital still seeking to get reimbursed for 20% of the services provided. Manually farmed out the administration of the claim to accompany called global life, which I think is affiliated with manual life. The hospital got excuse after excuse for not paying and now it’s seven months later and we’re still waiting for them to resolve the issue. The sad part is we know of one other party who had a similar experience with this company. Be very careful who you buy a policy from and check out the reputation. Should you have to file a claim
The number one injury for Americans abroad is being hit by vehicles. Especially in countries that drive on the left. Which is most of the Caribbean. And, don’t forget scooter rentals. Accidents happen, and seniors routinely have last minute health issues.
You might check out Divers Alert Network (DAN) for medical coverage while on a trip out of the USA. You dont have to be a diver to get the insurance coverage. You do have to contact them first to be covered for an event. I have not needed the coverage but at 125$ a year I will always get it.
I’ve had to make a medical claim with Allianz and while there were hiccups and lost electronic submissions of receipts (how does that happen?), we eventually got paid for everything we claimed. The claim involved surgery in Dubai, RT flight for a family member to go to Dubai, and new return flights home. Reservation was booked on points, and C1Vx credit card benefits were essentially capped at what we paid in taxes, so nothing.
Working with them required advocacy and constant follow-up, but we ended up renewing because we felt the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know. I think Allianz is also cheaper than other companies when we comparison shopped.
Sam makes a good point that the annual plans are secondary, but I don’t think that is a big deal because US health insurance rates don’t really go up based on your claim amount the previous year like home or car insurance. Our primary insurance ended up covering more than we expected surprisingly. One interesting thing is that Allianz paid some medical expenses directly, and for those expenses Allianz was primary as we didn’t have to submit those expenses to our primary health insurance.
Allianz’ annual plans are secondary to your other insurance. Their per-trip plans are primary. Huge difference in some cases.
If you have blue cross health insurance, see if it already covers international, ours does.
One big limit to be aware of annual travel I insurance plans is they often don’t work for longer trips. I think you have to be back in the USA every 90 days.
Thats the one i am planning to get (separate travel policy since I dont have Blue as my domestic insurance). I couldnt care less about delays or baggage protection. But medical coverage for long trips. Blue have a limit of 90 days per trip.
Doesn’t apply to you, at least for our blue health insurance, there isn’t a limit of 90 days per trip for international coverage. Since we travel for 5 or 6 months a go, this is a big plus.
But your BCBS is not primary, does not cover evacuation, and only covers emergencies, correct? At least that’s how my BCBS retiree plan works.
It is primary as it is our main health insurance through the ACA. It covers medical transport to the nearest medical facility that is acceptable, but not general medical transport back to the USA.
When using points and miles to book trips, you still have to assign a value to your trip when purchasing travel insurance. With Allianz and others you have to assign a minimum of $1000 dollars per trip to get their lowest quote. This is when I want to focus on the medical portion of the policy and less on the trip reimbursement portion. Not sure I am doing this right when booking with points.
I am older, but healthy, and travel a lot internationally. I decided to get an annual policy from GeoBreeze (a Blue Cross product) that is focused on medical needs and evacuation and is very reasonable. Travel insurances get very expensive when they cover trip cancellation. Most of my trips are with points and miles, so for me, there is no need to cover them.
Thats the way to do it!
Note for others looking at this, you need to pay a box extra to cover pre-existing conditions.
I think you meant GeoBlue, which is now BCBS Global Solutions.
I started using them years ago after I had to have an appendectomy in the first 24 hours after I arrived in Thailand.
Trying to get my US insurer to pay was like pulling teeth – they literally declined it the first time around because they said it was not an “emergent condition.” Are you kidding me?!? I had an elective surgery to remove my appendix?!? LOL
I ended up having to go BACK to the hospital months later to get ALL of my files and the insurer eventually begrudgingly paid like 50%.
GeoBlue has been great – I have a $50 deductible and have filed multiple claims over they years (I have VERY bad luck when traveling), with every one of them was paid very quickly.
For example, on a recent trip to Bangkok, I was slicing some fresh passionfruit in my room, when I sliced a small chunk of my finger off. When I realized the bleeding wasn’t even slowing down, I went to a nearly hospital to get it fixed/bandaged. I then went back twice to have it cleaned and dressed. Total out of pocket was around $550 USD and GeoBlue paid it quickly, taking out my annual deductible.
The reimbursement more than covered my annual premium (almost doubled it).
I was originally with Allianz for a few years, but this year I ended up choosing BCBS Global Solutions Multi-Trip Platinum instead. I already have excellent trip delay/cancellation coverage through my credit cards (Chase Sapphire Reserve and Amex Platinum), so I wanted to focus on the biggest risk: medical expenses abroad. I’m 62, in good health, but crap can occur anytime. BCBS gives me $1M in emergency medical coverage and $500K for medical evacuation/repatriation, versus only $50K in medical coverage with the Allianz annual plan I was considering. Since I have Kaiser in the U.S., the BCBS plan was a much better fit. The price difference was about $100 more.
One important factor to consider is evacuation coverage to a medical facility of your choice, NOT the closest choice of the insurance company!
I have had an annual Medjet policy for several years that I am happy with which includes evacuation for medical evacuation, civil unrest, and natural disasters. They also have an AARP discount. I am also an international nomad eight months out of the year. I do not book anything nonrefundable and am not concerned with other travel expenses.
I am looking forward to additional discussion on this subject.
Yes my husband and I took out a 3-yr policy with Medjet. After an incident at our home in Mexico, this would have been our best option rather than having a family member fly down and help me drive our car and disabled husband, back to Colorado. A friend we met in Mexico, a former travel agent, recommended this policy. As it turned out, another friend’s 83-yo husband had to be flown back to Seattle from Italy after acquiring pneumonia. Medjet covered everything and flew him with a nurse back to Seattle. These are some of the worst-case scenarios where some will require such care on a long trans-Atlantic flight. We can never fully anticipate unfortunate circumstances that may arise.
You skipped the first and most important question regarding medical insurance: what coverage does your policy give you when traveling abroad? I get the same coverage when I travel as when I’m home, so no need at all for me to worry about medical stuff.
This is a really important question, and often people respond with “I have Aetna” or “I
have Kaiser”. The provider is not relevant — US employer plans often have international coverage, while Medicare or US govt plans may not. TBH I’m not exactly sure what Medicare Advantage covers because my understanding is that they shouldn’t cover anything outside the US (or N Amer), but I’ve been reimbursed for non-US expenses, so who knows.
“no need at all for me to worry about medical stuff.” It’s primary abroad, no out of pocket? Includes evacuation?
Evacuation insurance is certainly worth buying if you don’t have it. I guess the question for a lot of us is whether the Amex Platinum coverage is sufficient.
I don’t want $0 out-of-pocket coverage (unless somebody else is paying the premium) because that is being-over insured. I do look at the out-of-pocket cap. For example, my policy is $3,600 family deductible, $6,000 individual out-of-pocket cap, and $12,000 family out of pocket cap for domestic and international, and that is plenty of coverage for me.
I’m not sure about your question on primary. What would it be secondary to, and would that matter as long as they have coverage?
I get the exact same coverage for medical care abroad as I do in the US. So if my medical coverage is good enough here then it’s good enough there. Not sure about evacuation (that might fall under my maximum yearly deductible or may not) but Amex Platinum is outstanding for that and my wife has a premium Amex card too. So I haven’t checked evac bc Amex has me well covered and I’ve read stories about how good that is.
Most standard insurance policies have insufficient evacuation coverage.