Travel Insurance for Flyers: What You Actually Need

What Travel Insurance Actually Covers

Travel insurance is not a single product — it's a bundle of several distinct coverage types, each addressing different risks. Understanding what you're buying requires reading the policy's "Schedule of Benefits" rather than the marketing summary. The five primary coverage categories for air travelers are: trip cancellation, trip interruption, travel delay, emergency medical, and emergency evacuation. Most comprehensive policies include all five; individual coverage can be purchased separately if you need only one type.

Trip cancellation coverage reimburses prepaid, non-refundable travel expenses when you're forced to cancel before departure for a covered reason. Covered reasons vary by policy but typically include illness (of the traveler or an immediate family member), injury, death in the family, job loss, jury duty, and certain natural disasters at the destination. "Cancel for Any Reason" (CFAR) upgrades — available as add-ons from most insurers — allow cancellation for literally any reason, typically reimbursing 75% of prepaid costs. CFAR coverage typically costs 40–60% more than standard cancellation coverage and must be purchased within 10–21 days of initial trip deposit.

Trip interruption coverage applies when you must cut a trip short after it has already begun — returning early because a family member became critically ill, for example. Interruption coverage typically reimburses the unused portion of prepaid expenses plus the cost of last-minute return transportation. This is distinct from trip cancellation (pre-departure) and addresses a different risk: the trip has started and cannot be completed as planned. Both coverages are typically bundled in comprehensive policies but have separate claim limits.

Emergency Medical Coverage: The Most Critical Component for International Travel

Domestic US health insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, most employer plans) provides little or no coverage for medical expenses incurred abroad. A medical emergency in Japan, Germany, or Australia — countries with excellent healthcare systems but high costs for uninsured foreign patients — can produce bills of $50,000–$300,000 for hospitalization, surgery, and care. Without travel insurance providing emergency medical coverage, these costs fall entirely on the traveler.

Emergency medical coverage in travel insurance pays for medical treatment received abroad, up to the policy's stated limit. Minimum recommended coverage is $100,000; $250,000 is more appropriate for destinations in Western Europe, Japan, or Australia where healthcare costs are high. Some premium credit cards (Chase Sapphire Reserve, American Express Platinum) include emergency medical coverage of $10,000–$20,000 — useful for minor emergencies but insufficient for serious ones. Travelers relying solely on credit card medical coverage for international trips are significantly underinsured.

Emergency medical evacuation coverage is separate from emergency medical and equally important. If you're injured or fall seriously ill in a location without adequate medical facilities — a remote safari destination, a cruise port in a developing country, a ski resort in a country where the nearest qualified hospital is 200 miles away — evacuation coverage pays to transport you by air ambulance to the nearest adequate facility or, if medically advisable, back to the US. Air ambulance costs run $30,000–$150,000 depending on origin and destination. International SOS and Medjet Assist are standalone medical evacuation service providers; most comprehensive travel insurance policies include evacuation coverage within their bundle.

Travel Delay and Missed Connection Coverage

Travel delay coverage reimburses expenses incurred when a flight is delayed beyond a threshold — typically 6 or 12 hours — due to a covered reason (weather, mechanical failure, ATC delays). Covered expenses include meals, hotel, and ground transportation incurred during the delay. Coverage typically ranges from $150–$250 per day with a maximum of $500–$1,000 per trip. This coverage applies when the airline doesn't provide vouchers or accommodates passengers — which they're obligated to do for mechanical and some weather delays under US regulations but not always promptly or adequately.

Missed connection coverage applies when a delay on a flight you were booked on causes you to miss a connection, triggering additional expenses to rebook. This is distinct from the airline's own rebooking obligation: airlines must rebook you on their next available flight for disruptions within their control, but if the next available flight is two days later and you need to reach a cruise departure or a wedding, missed connection coverage pays for alternative transportation (business class on a competitor's next flight, for example). Coverage limits of $500–$1,500 are typical.

Trip delay and missed connection coverage has a critical timing requirement: the delay must exceed the policy's stated threshold (often 6 hours) and must be caused by a covered event. A delay caused by you arriving late to the airport — even if you were late because your ride share was stuck in traffic — is not covered. Delays caused by the airline for operational reasons (mechanical, crew, ATC) are covered. Weather delays present ambiguity: weather itself is typically covered, but secondary delays caused by weather at other airports in the airline's network may or may not be covered depending on policy language.

What Credit Card Travel Insurance Covers (and Doesn't)

Premium travel credit cards — Chase Sapphire Reserve, Amex Platinum, Citi Prestige — include travel insurance benefits as card perks. These benefits are real but incomplete compared to a comprehensive standalone policy. Chase Sapphire Reserve includes trip cancellation ($10,000/person), trip delay ($500/day after 6 hours), lost baggage ($3,000), and emergency medical evacuation (no stated limit, but handled through Visa's Infinite concierge). The coverage is triggered only when you use the card to purchase at least a portion of the travel.

Credit card travel insurance does not typically include emergency medical coverage. This is the largest gap: Sapphire Reserve cardholders who break a leg in Italy and require hospitalization are not covered for the hospital bills by their Visa benefit — only emergency evacuation to a US facility. For travelers with comprehensive domestic insurance that provides minimal international coverage, supplementing credit card benefits with a standalone "medical only" travel insurance policy ($30–$70 for a 2-week trip) closes this gap efficiently.

Credit card trip cancellation coverage is more restricted than standalone policies. Most cards require cancellation for specific covered reasons (illness, death in family, severe weather at destination) — not the broad "cancel for any reason" some assume credit card coverage provides. Domestic cancellations (within the US) are often excluded or have lower limits. Reading the specific benefit guide for your card — available in the cardmember agreement, not the marketing materials — before relying on it for a significant trip is essential.

Choosing and Purchasing a Policy

InsureMyTrip.com and Squaremouth.com are the two major travel insurance comparison platforms, showing policies from 20–30 insurers side by side with coverage limits, exclusions, and price. Both allow filtering by coverage type (cancel for any reason, medical-heavy, adventure sports coverage) and display actual customer reviews. A comprehensive policy for a $3,000 international trip typically costs $120–$250 depending on traveler age, trip length, and coverage level. Older travelers pay significantly more, as emergency medical claim costs correlate strongly with age.

Purchase timing matters. Most policies must be purchased within 10–21 days of the initial trip deposit to qualify for pre-existing condition waivers and CFAR upgrades. A pre-existing condition waiver means that a medical condition that existed before policy purchase doesn't exclude you from trip cancellation or emergency medical claims related to that condition — without the waiver, a pre-existing heart condition that causes a trip cancellation is not covered. Buying within the first two weeks of booking any trip preserves maximum coverage options.

Annual travel insurance policies — "multi-trip" policies that cover every trip you take in a 12-month period — are cost-effective for travelers taking three or more international trips per year. World Nomads, Allianz Global Assistance, and AIG Travel Guard all offer annual plans at $200–$400 per year that provide $100,000+ emergency medical, evacuation, and delay coverage on any trip up to 30 or 60 days per journey. For frequent international travelers, the per-trip cost of an annual policy is often lower than individual trip policies while providing continuous coverage.