What Does Travel Insurance Cover? (2025)

Travel insurance protects you while you’re on a trip. Depending on the type of policy, travel insurance can help pay for non-refundable expenses, such as lost hotel stays due to a mandatory hurricane-related evacuation. It can also cover trip cancellation, lost luggage, and unexpected medical expenses.^[1]

You’ve likely spent a lot of time and money planning the perfect vacation. If your trip is canceled or cut short due to unforeseen circumstances, travel insurance can help you recoup your financial losses.

Here’s what you should know about travel insurance and what it covers so you can decide if a travel policy is right for you.

How travel insurance works

When you buy travel insurance, you can opt for a single-trip plan that protects you on one specific trip or purchase an annual plan that covers all trips you take in one year.^[2] An annual plan will be more expensive, but it could be worth it if you’re a frequent traveler.

If you have a single-trip policy, it’ll come with primary emergency medical benefits. With an annual policy, you’ll receive benefits secondary to your health insurance plan.

As with other types of insurance policies, travel insurance will reimburse you for a covered loss after you submit a claim and the insurance company approves it.^[3]

You can buy travel insurance from a travel insurance company, a vacation rental company, credit card issuer, or through a travel agent or airline.

Types of travel insurance coverage

Travel insurance protects you against three main categories of losses: 

• Non-refundable travel costs, such as airfare and hotel bills

• Medical emergency costs

• Losses related to the personal property you bring on your trip, such as your luggage

Your exact coverage will depend on the type of travel policy you purchase. Some coverages are standard, while you can purchase others as optional add-ons.

Below are the most common types of travel insurance to consider.

Trip cancellation, interruption, or delay

Trip cancellation insurance reimburses you for any non-refundable expenses you’ve already paid if your trip starts late, ends early, or you need to cancel it because of a covered emergency.^[4]

Covered emergencies vary by insurance company and policy, but they typically include:

• Illness, injury, or the hospitalization or death of a family member, even if they’re not traveling

• Transportation delays and cancellations

• Illness or death of host

• Jury duty

• Mandatory evacuation due to severe weather or a natural disaster

• Military duty

• Job loss

• Adoption

Trip cancellation insurance usually covers 100% of your prepaid non-reimbursable costs. Trip interruption insurance may provide more than 100% coverage of prepaid costs if it pays for your transportation home. Trip delay insurance typically pays a flat daily rate for lodging, transportation, and other costs you incur due to a covered delay.

Baggage and personal effects loss or delay

This coverage reimburses you for baggage and other personal items that get damaged, lost, or stolen. But it’s secondary to your homeowners or renters insurance — if you have either of those policies, you must submit your claim to that insurer first. Travel insurance will pay for what homeowners or renters insurance doesn’t cover.

Reimbursement for baggage delays covers the costs of any essentials you need if you’ll be without your baggage for a certain period of time, such as 24 hours.

Travel medical insurance

Travel medical insurance covers the cost of treatment for medical and dental emergencies that happen while you’re traveling. These emergencies might include physician and nursing care, hospital bills, ambulance fees, and prescription medications. Dental coverage usually has a much lower limit than medical care — $500 versus $10,000, for example.

If you have a health insurance policy, your travel medical insurance coverage will serve as secondary insurance.

Emergency medical evacuation

Quality medical care isn’t always available in remote areas, and most health plans, including Medicare, won’t pay for transportation to a properly equipped healthcare facility. These plans also won’t pay for transportation to the U.S. in the case of death or medical necessity. Instead, emergency medical evacuation coverage pays these costs.

Missed trip connection

A missed connection can force you to start a cruise or travel tour late, and you’ll likely incur additional transportation and lodging expenses to meet the ship or group after it’s already underway. Trip delay and interruption policies cover common carrier issues and weather-related delays, but if you don’t have that coverage for some reason, missed-connection insurance will pay for the added expenses.

Cancel for any reason (CFAR)

Cancel-for-any-reason insurance is usually an add-on to your travel insurance policy. It overrides standard coverage restrictions for covered reasons to cancel your trip.

But CFAR coverage doesn’t usually reimburse 100% of your prepaid non-refundable expenses like cancelation coverage does. Instead, you’ll be out 25% to 50% of those costs, according to the NAIC.

Comprehensive

Unlike stand-alone travel medical insurance, which only covers medical expenses your primary health insurance doesn’t cover while you travel, comprehensive travel insurance includes more coverage.

In addition to covering medical expenses, comprehensive travel insurance also provides trip delay/interruption/cancelation coverage and coverage for lost, damaged, or stolen baggage and personal belongings and other non-medical events.

What travel insurance doesn’t cover

Travel insurance doesn’t cover everything. Here are some common travel insurance exclusions you’ll want to be aware of:

• Pre-existing conditions: Standard travel insurance medical coverage doesn’t cover pre-existing medical conditions. But higher-level plans might if you purchase the insurance within a certain time frame after booking your trip or before making your final payment. You’ll also need to be healthy enough to travel when you leave for your trip.

• Civil and political unrest at the travel destination: Standard travel insurance policies don’t cover losses due to civil and political unrest. But cancel-for-any-reason coverage might reimburse losses from delays or interruptions.

• Pregnancy and childbirth: Trip insurance typically doesn’t cover cancellations due to pregnancy, childbirth, or routine medical care for either. But it might include coverage for emergencies related to these conditions, such as pre-eclampsia or complications during delivery.

• Pandemics: Trip delay/interruption/cancelation policies typically exclude fear of a pandemic or epidemic from coverage. These are foreseeable events in many cases, so even if you decide to travel but become ill as a result, you won’t be covered. That said, some trip insurance companies have made allowances for COVID-19.

• Risky activities: Your travel insurance is unlikely to cover you if you’re injured in a risky activity while traveling, like skydiving, rock climbing, or bungee jumping.

Where to buy travel insurance

Travel insurance is available through many different outlets, including:

• 

  Airlines

  Purchasing travel insurance through your airline when you book your travel is convenient. But it limits you to the insurance company the airline partners with. If you go this route, make sure the policy isn’t limited to flight insurance if you intend to purchase comprehensive coverage.

• 

  Travel agent

  You might be able to purchase travel insurance from the travel agent who books your vacation. Just remember that your travel agent isn’t a licensed insurance agent. They can relay the information contained in the policies but can’t advise you on coverage.

• 

  Vacation rental company

  As with airlines, vacation rental companies and online travel agents, like Airbnb, typically offer travel insurance from a single insurance company. Alternatively, they might provide travel protection services that aren’t insurance.

• 

  Credit card company

  Travel insurance that you purchase through your credit card issuer provides the same kind of comprehensive coverage other insurers offer, but the only expenses likely to be reimbursed are the ones you charged to the card.

• 

  Direct from company

  Buying travel insurance straight from the insurer, whether it sells travel insurance exclusively or handles many lines, is the most flexible option. You can research the various levels of protection each offers and compare rates and coverages. And if you have a question, you can talk to an agent.

• 

  Comparison site

  Insurance-comparison sites are the most efficient way to shop for insurance. You can get quotes from several different companies, compare them side by side, and purchase the best choice for you, all without leaving the platform.

How much does travel insurance cost?

Travel insurance typically costs 4% to 8% of the trip’s overall cost, according to the US Travel Insurance Association.^[6] Your costs will vary based on factors like the length of your trip, where you’re traveling to, the company you purchased coverage from, and your age.

Travel insurance coverage FAQs