Best Travel Insurance Companies of 2023
Squaremouth offers the largest travel insurance marketplace in the United States. Using our quote and comparison tools, travelers can find the best travel insurance policy for their trip at the most affordable price.
Leveraging analytics from 2.4 million insured travelers, Squaremouth ranks the best travel insurance providers of 2023 based on policies sold.
Best Selling Travel Insurance Providers
What Does The Best Travel Insurance Policy Include?
Comprehensive travel insurance will cover the most common traveler concerns, including cancellation, medical, travel delay, and lost luggage benefits, among others. The best travel insurance providers offer multiple coverage options to help travelers find the right choice for their trip.
Travel insurance coverage is designed to help protect travelers from a financial loss before or during their trip, whether it’s due to an unforeseen event beforehand that impacts their vacation plans, a medical emergency while traveling, or other unexpected losses.
Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance
The most common reason travelers buy travel insurance is for Trip Cancellation coverage. Roughly 70% of travelers who buy trip insurance on Squaremouth.com purchase Trip Cancellation.
The Trip Cancellation benefit can reimburse 100% of a traveler’s prepaid and non-refundable trip expenses if they need to cancel for a covered reason.
The most common covered reasons within Trip Cancellation include:
- An unforeseen illness, injury or death
- A hurricane or inclement weather
- A terrorist attack
- Other reasons such as financial default of an airline, a natural disaster, employment layoff, or others
Trip Cancellation is a benefit that covers travelers before they leave. Travelers who buy a policy with this benefit will also have Trip Interruption coverage during their trip. This benefit covers the same things as Trip Cancellation, but applies to travelers after their trip has already begun. In addition to covering a traveler’s prepaid and non-refundable expenses, Trip Interruption can also reimburse their additional travel expenses to return home.
For travelers who want cancellation coverage with increased flexibility, Cancel For Any Reason is the best option. Cancel For Any Reason can provide partial reimbursement for travelers who need to cancel for reasons that are not otherwise covered by Trip Cancellation. While this benefit provides added flexibility, it does increase premium by roughly 40%.
Travel Medical Insurance
After Trip Cancellation, the most important benefit for a majority of travelers is medical coverage. About 30% of Squaremouth travelers buy a policy specifically for travel medical insurance.
There are two main travel medical insurance benefits: Emergency Medical and Medical Evacuation.
Emergency Medical: The Emergency Medical benefit can reimburse the costs to treat a medical emergency during a trip. This benefit covers the cost of treatment for an unexpected illness or injury that occurs while traveling, including ambulance services, hospital and doctor bills, emergency dental services, and x-rays or lab costs. This benefit does not cover routine checkups, prescription refills, or any type of medical tourism.
Squaremouth recommends travelers taking international trips purchase at least $50,000 in Emergency Medical coverage. Travelers taking a cruise or visiting a remote destination should look for a policy with at least $100,000 in medical coverage.
Medical Evacuation: The Medical Evacuation benefit can provide coverage for transportation of a traveler to the nearest adequate medical facility in the event of a medical emergency during their trip. Most policies with Medical Evacuation coverage will transport a traveler to the nearest adequate medical facility. If the treating doctor determines they should go home for further medical attention, this benefit can also cover those transportation expenses.
Squaremouth recommends travelers taking international trips purchase at least $100,000 in Emergency Medical. For travelers taking a cruise or traveling to a remote destination, travelers should look for a policy with at least $250,000 in coverage.
Additional Benefits within a Comprehensive Travel Insurance Policy
These additional benefits include coverage for trip delays, luggage, accidental death, and adventurous activities, among others. Most travel insurance policies are built to give travelers peace of mind by offering coverage for the most common concerns. In addition to cancellation and medical benefits, there are other key travel insurance benefits that travelers should look for in a policy.
Squaremouth provides a detailed breakdown of all travel insurance benefits, helping travelers find the specific coverage they need for their trip.How Much Should You Pay for Travel Insurance?
In general, a comprehensive travel insurance policy with Trip Cancellation will cost between 5% and 10% of the total trip cost. Travel medical policies without cancellation coverage are much less expensive.
The main factors that determine the cost of a travel insurance policy are the cost of the trip, the age of the travelers, the length of the trip, and the coverage amounts.
How Do I Find the Best Travel Insurance For My Trip?
Travelers should start by identifying the benefits that are most important to them. Typically, these are Trip Cancellation and Emergency Medical, but it varies by traveler. It’s important to note that most travel insurance plans cover many of the same benefits and events. However, the level of coverage, benefit limits, and total cost per plan can vary significantly. Because of this variance, Squaremouth always recommends the least expensive policy with the benefits a traveler needs.
Depending on each traveler’s trip details, the type of travel insurance policy they should buy may vary. While a single trip policy is the right choice for most travelers, some may be better suited buying other policy types. These other policy types include annual, group, cruise, and sports & adventure.
When should I buy an annual travel insurance policy?
Annual travel insurance policies are designed to offer affordable coverage for frequent travelers who take multiple trips per year. The best annual policies will provide medical coverage for one calendar year, in addition to other benefits. Some annual plans offer Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption, but most do not include these benefits.
Visit our Annual Travel Insurance page to learn more and quote annual policies.
When should I buy a group travel insurance policy?
Group travel insurance policies allow organized groups of 10 or more travelers to buy one policy at a group rate. A group policy offers comprehensive coverage at an affordable rate for large groups, with coverage for the main traveler concerns.
Visit our Group Travel Insurance page to learn more and quote group policies.
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