The Best Travel Insurance

Our experts agreed that emergency medical coverage is the most important piece of travel insurance, in large part because most US health plans don’t cover you abroad. That means that if you break your leg or catch pneumonia in a foreign country or on an international cruise without travel insurance, you’re responsible for the entire bill.

So how much medical coverage do you need? Megan Singh, of travel insurance comparison site Squaremouth.com, recommends enough to cover at least a week in the hospital — about $50K.

Medical evacuation is a separate coverage item, but it’s just as critical. If you need to be airlifted in a medical transport helicopter or flown home to the US on a medically staffed flight, those costs can easily exceed $50,000. A policy with $100K in evacuation coverage should cover a worst-case scenario.

Evacuation expenses are separate from treatment costs, so even if your American health care pays for treatments overseas, it almost certainly doesn’t cover your return back to the USA.

We also required both medical coverages to be primary rather than secondary. Primary means that your travel insurance effectively replaces any other medical insurance you already have, which helps in two important ways. First, it speeds up claims-processing times. Because there’s no need for your travel insurer to coordinate with your health provider back home, you’ll get reimbursed months faster, without as much paperwork. Second, in the rare event that your US plan is in effect, your travel insurance will still kick in first. That means you won’t be responsible for multiple deductibles, and there’s no risk of hitting any annual or lifetime health insurance limits.

When you consider that the cost difference between primary and secondary coverage is typically only a few dollars, there’s really no reason not to have primary travel medical insurance for emergencies.

Then we compared their specific coverage details.

Above, we listed the five general coverage types in a comprehensive plan, but the specific benefits within them can vary. To see how they stack up, we combed through each company’s policy details and scored them on both available options and generosity of coverage.

We gave the most points to providers that offered a “Cancel for Any Reason” option, which reimburses a portion of your non-refundable costs (usually 75 percent) if you decide to call off your trip for a reason that’s not expressly covered under the policy. That means if your basement floods the night before you’re scheduled to depart, or your traveling companion doesn’t feel up to the snorkeling trip you booked months in advance, you’ll still be reimbursed.

We also gave preference to companies with optional medical coverage for hazardous, “extreme” activities like scuba diving (never covered under standard emergency medical), as well as coverage for children at no additional cost. Digging deeper, we graded the requirements for particular coverages to kick in — for instance, how many hours your bags must be delayed before you’ll be reimbursed for clothes and toiletries — as well as dollar limits.

A few big names surprised us in this round: Berkshire Hathaway, run by billionaire Warren Buffett, offers relatively spartan coverage with very few extras (no extreme sports option or included coverage for children, and super-low benefits for things like missed flight connections beyond your control). Trawick International lost points for requiring that your flight be delayed a full 12 hours before it’ll reimburse for things like food and a hotel room.

After reviewing the details of each policy, we moved forward with the seven providers that scored above-average: Allianz, April International, AXA, IMG, John Hancock, Travelex, and TripAssure.

And finally, we put their customer service to the test.

We called and emailed our seven finalists to experience the human side of those dense, wordy policies. Great customer service not only factors into the claims process, but also can help you purchase the right coverage in the first place — not to mention help you understand how to use it.

While most companies were quick to respond, there were some noticeable differences in the depth of knowledge each brought to the conversation. It was super easy to tell, for example, which reps had actual claims-handling experience versus those who were just reading the policy to us over the phone.

Take AXA and Allianz. While their coverage is generous, their reps came across as impatient to make a sale, pushing for personal details before they’d answered our questions about their policies. Allianz, to its credit, was the only company to offer a mobile app to file claims. TripAssure was essentially cut for having no way to send an email — no address, plus no working form on the site. On the whole though, the companies whose coverage impressed us most also delivered on customer service, strengthening our faith in them.

You should still compare quotes from each provider.

Even though cost is likely to be the main factor in your choice of travel insurance, we didn’t compare premiums. There are just too many variables for us to reliably say which company will give you the best price. Company A could have better rates for your family’s trip to Canada than Company B, but Company C might be cheapest for your Australian rock-climbing sojourn.

In general, however, you should expect your policy to cost between 4–10 percent of your total trip cost. The main factors that determine premiums are trip cost and length, the age of the travelers (older people are more expensive to insure), and any options you select (things like extreme sports coverage and Cancel For Any Reason). To find the best price for your trip, we recommend getting a quote from each of our top picks.

Our Picks for the Best Travel Insurance

Best for Families

 Travelex Insurance Services Kids, teens, and adult children under 21 are all covered under one policy, with no extra fee.

Travelex wins this distinction for being the only insurer to cover kids under 21 at no additional cost. There are a few restrictions: You have to purchase the Travel Select plan, which caps medical treatment coverage at $50K, but does provide an additional $50k with the Additional Medical Coverage upgrade. The total trip cost cannot exceed $10,000 (though if you’re spending that much on a vacation, you’re probably not too concerned about paying a little extra for your kids’ coverage).

We like how Travelex packages its optional coverage, too: as Customized Upgrades designed around specific trip types.

Customer service was on point as well. Our email was answered within four hours, and our phone call in less than a minute. The rep we spoke to was knowledgeable, friendly, and didn’t push us once for personal data, which was refreshing. Travelex’s underwriter, Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, has an A++ rating from A.M. Best.

Best for Solo Travelers

John Hancock John Hancock matches comprehensive coverage with friendly, knowledge customer support.

John Hancock impressed us at every stage of our testing, but really pulled ahead in the customer service evaluation. Attentive customer service is crucial — especially during unexpected, stressful situations when you’re away from home.

It bears noting that John Hancock’s customer support (their sales and claims departments) is actually managed by Seven Corners — another insurance company that just missed the cut for not offering primary medical coverage. When you call about a John Hancock policy, you’ll be speaking to someone from Seven Corners. Even with this extra layer, a policy with John Hancock offers first-rate coverage backed by the best customer service reps we spoke to.

Our test call was answered after less than a minute by a woman named Ynez who had worked for years in the company’s claims department and knew the coverage backward and forward. She was warm, patient, and sounded genuinely happy as she recounted a story about a woman she’d helped evacuate from a safari after she fell ill. We’re confident that, if we had to call in an emergency, we’d be in good hands.

Each of its three comprehensive tiers (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) offers add-on options for extreme sports/activities as well as Cancel for Any Reason.

We don’t like the absence of a pre-existing conditions waiver for the Bronze plan, but Silver and Gold have everything we looked for, including a tiny detail in trip delay coverage that stood out: up to $150/day for meals and other expenses if your flight is delayed by three hours, as opposed to five to 12 hours with every other company we reviewed. That means if you and your family are starving in the terminal as you await your flight, John Hancock will pay for everybody to eat a meal after a three-hour delay, which seems much more considerate than asking you hold out for five or more.

Still, families should prepare to shell out a little more to cover kids; John Hancock treats them as additional travelers subject to their own premiums.

Best for Adventurers

 IMG Each level of protection covers adventure sports like scuba diving excursions, helicopters rides, and moped rentals.

IMG offers one comprehensive travel packages: iTravelInsured LX designed for remote and tropical locations, which includes coverage for extreme activities, search and rescue, and an automatic Cancel/Interrupt For Any Reason provision. It’s an experienced company whose customer service impressed us (especially the Live Chat option, which only John Hancock matched among our finalists).

The only downside: its trip and baggage delay coverages don’t kick in until you’re delayed six and 12 hours, respectively, which seems long. Still, that’s a tiny difference in the grand scheme, and the rest of IMG’s comprehensive coverage is plenty robust.

Best for Long Trips

Allianz Global Assistance If you’re spending a semester abroad planning a year-long tour across the global, Allianz has you covered for up to 365 days.

Allianz is a big name in the industry (we often see its collision coverage offer at the end of the rental car booking process), but surprisingly, it only offers one plan that met all our criteria: the Classic Plan with Trip+. Its coverage is fairly thorough with one notable exception: no Cancel for Any Reason option.

Less important but still absent is “hazardous activities” coverage for things like scuba diving or zip lining. That said, if you’re planning a trip longer than six months, Allianz is one of your best options. Most providers (excepting Travelex) limit their coverage to three months, but Allianz will insurance trips up to one year in length. If you’re spending the year studying aboard or backpacking across Europe, its coverage is generous enough to see you through a worst-case scenario.

However, out phone experience with Allianz customer service was mediocre at best: We were on hold for more than five minutes initially, and then we were connected with someone who seemed to know less about the plans than we did. If we had to file a claim or urgently needed help, we’d expect to hit a few bumps.