Is Travel Insurance Worth It? (2025)

Travel insurance covers unreimbursed losses that result when you have to delay, interrupt, or cancel a trip — and it can also offer some medical coverage.1 Travel insurance might not be worth it if you’re staying at a nearby hotel that lets you cancel your reservation up until the last minute. But the more expensive your trip, and the farther from home you travel, the more valuable travel insurance becomes.

Here’s what you should know about how travel insurance works, how much it costs, and when to buy it.

Is travel insurance worth it for your trip?

Whether travel insurance is worth it depends on how much you’ll lose if you have to delay, shorten, or cancel your trip.

Say you’ve purchased a $2,500 nonrefundable air and hotel package. Without insurance, you’d forfeit the entire $2,500 if an illness forced you to cancel. But with coverage, you could get your whole $2,500 back. So travel insurance is worth it in that case.

On the other hand, if you’ve booked a hotel in a nearby city, and the hotel allows last-minute cancellations, you likely wouldn’t need travel insurance.

When you need travel insurance

Travel insurance provides plenty of value when you stand to lose money if an unexpected mishap interferes with your travel plans.2 You may need it in the following situations:

• Expensive trips with unreimbursable travel costs, such as airfare, hotels, and tours

• Long-duration travel, which increases the chances of needing medical care while you’re away

• Expensive booking at a hotel with a strict cancellation policy

• You or a travel companion has health issues that might need attention

• Travel to a destination with little or no access to quality medical facilities

• Your destination is prone to hurricanes or other natural disasters

• Your trip includes multiple destinations

When you can skip travel insurance

The following travel scenarios have little or no risk of financial losses, so you likely won’t need trip protection:

• Inexpensive local travel

• Fully refundable transportation and accommodation bookings

• Trips you book using a credit card with flight insurance, baggage loss protection, and other benefits that overlap with travel insurance coverage

• A traveling companion’s insurance policy covers you

What does travel insurance cover?

Travel insurance plans cover your travel expenses (up to policy limits) when specific unexpected events happen before or during your trip. Here are several coverages to look for:3

What travel insurance usually doesn’t cover

Travel insurance policies are usually named-peril policies, which specify covered situations, like illness or canceled flights. But travel insurance doesn’t typically cover interruptions that may be expected, like political unrest or injuries from skydiving.4

Here are some things travel insurance doesn’t cover:

• Pandemic concerns: Your plan won’t cover concerns over an outbreak of COVID-19 in your travel destination.

• Pre-existing conditions: Your policy might exclude coverage for the treatment of pre-existing conditions or require proof that you have no travel restrictions.

• Injuries from high-risk activities: Adventure-type activities, like mountain climbing, might be excluded from medical and emergency evacuation coverage.

• Political unrest, war, terrorism: Some companies exclude these events if they occur before you purchase your travel policy.

• Named storm: Policies usually exclude named storms that arise before you purchase your insurance.

How much does travel insurance cost?

Travel insurance typically costs between 4% and 10% of your total travel expenses. Your exact travel insurance costs depend on many factors, such as:

• How much coverage you buy

• Travelers’ ages

• Total cost of the trip

• Insurance coverage limits

• Number of people covered

• Trip duration

• How far in advance you book

Here’s a look at how much you’d pay at the bottom, middle, and top of that range.

Comparison shopping can help you find the cheapest travel insurance for the coverage you need.

Where can you buy travel insurance?

You have a few choices for buying travel insurance. The most convenient is to bundle it with your booking. Hotels, vacation rental companies, airlines, cruise lines, travel agents, and online travel agent sites often partner with travel insurance companies to offer coverage for their customers.

For more flexibility and the ability to shop for the best travel insurance rates, consider purchasing your policy independently. You can request quotes directly from travel insurance companies or use an online comparison site to compare quotes from several insurers at once.

Travel insurance FAQs