Top Travel Insurance Companies 2018

Whether you typically plan your vacations months in advance or you’re a fan of last-minute adventures, travel insurance is a necessity. You never know when the airline is going to lose your luggage, an illness is going to prevent you from boarding a flight or your belongings are going to mysteriously disappear from your hotel room. There are so many unknown factors that could interfere with even a perfectly planned trip, and those unexpected twists and turns rarely come with warnings.

When you’re protected by travel insurance, you can relax rather than worrying about every little thing that may go wrong and ultimately hit you in the pocketbook. It’s important to compare rates and terms from at least a few insurance companies before selecting the best policy for your upcoming trip, so we did the research to help you connect with the best companies quickly.

Travelex Insurance Services

Travelex has been in business for more than 20 years and scores an A+ with the Better Business Bureau. They provide comprehensive insurance policies that meet the needs of most people for any type of trip. The fastest way to secure a policy is to visit their website, but they also sell through some airports, travel agencies, and tour companies.

It’s important to select the policy that best fits your needs for each upcoming trip. This breakdown of the options will help you make that decision:

• Travel Basic – This is the cheapest travel insurance offered, and prices start around $20. You’ll receive 100 percent coverage for trip interruption and cancellation along with limited benefits for lost or delayed luggage, trip delay, missed connection, accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D), and emergency medical or dental. You have the option of adding upgrades to customize your coverage.
• Travel Select – Prices start under $30 for this plan, so it’s still affordable for most travelers. The trip interruption coverage is increased to 150 percent, and you receive higher payouts for all other terms included in the basic plan. Sporting equipment delay is also included with this plan, and you can customize by selecting upgrades.
• Flight Insure & Insure Plus – Starting prices are currently below $20 for this plan, but it only offers coverage for potential issues involving your flight. This includes trip delay, baggage delay and general coverage for loss of personal items or baggage. Emergency medical and dental is included along with emergency medical evacuation. The accident protection portion of the plan is customizable, so you can determine how much coverage you want to secure. The Plus policy simply includes additional benefits.

These plans also come with travel assistance, so you aren’t alone when you head out for your next adventure. To give you a general idea of their rates, we ran a quote on their website for a single, 32-year-old traveler from Florida taking a two-day trip worth $2,000. We were quoted $61 for the basic plan or $65 for the select plan without adding upgrades.

Seven Corners, Inc.

This is another travel insurance company with an A+ Better Business Bureau ranking. The offer a variety of travel insurance policies for national and international trips of all types. They work with individuals, groups and families of all sizes as well as governments and businesses of all sizes. They have a variety of policy options for U.S. residents traveling internationally, non-Americans visiting the United States, and anyone interested in general trip protection.

When selecting a general travel protection plan, you have the following options:

• Round Trip Economy – This is the most affordable policy, and it covers 100 percent of your trip cost for cancellation or interruption. You also receive limited payouts for trip delay, missed connections or tours, itinerary change, medical, baggage and personal belongings, and AD&D. There are a few upgrade options, including the right to cancel your trip for full reimbursement for any reason.
• Round Trip Choice – This policy increases the coverage for trip interruption to 150 percent of the trip cost and increases the payout values for all coverage categories included in the economy policy. It also shortens the time that you must wait before you can file for baggage delay payout. This is the only plan that will cover political evacuation.
• Round Trip Elite – This is the most comprehensive and expensive plan, and it will increase your payouts for all coverage categories while giving you the shortest wait times before claiming for delayed baggage. This is likely your best option if you want maximum coverage for an expensive trip or if you think there’s a good chance that your trip will have interruptions or cancellations.

You can expand some of these policies up to 90 days, giving you more time to complete your trip while fully covered. We repeated our quote on this website and received estimates of $44 for the economy plan and $57 for the elite plan. The choice plan wasn’t available for our sample single traveler.

Allianz Global Assistance

This is one of the most popular travel insurance companies, and it’s utilized by the American Auto Club to provide travel insurance quotes. They have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and offer a convenient mobile app. In addition to providing insurance for a variety of trips, they provide travel concierge services and offer to help you solve any type of travel-related problem.

Allianz has been in business for more than 100 years and boasts more than 30 million satisfied customers. You have three options when securing travel insurance from this company:

• Single Trip – These plans are purchased for individual trips and range from trip-cancellation only to basic and premier plans with a variety of coverage inclusions. There are currently five plan options in this category.
• Annual Plans – This is the multi-trip category reserved for frequent travelers. Rather than taking the time to secure single-trip coverage each time you head off, you can pay one price for 12 months of ongoing coverage. These plans are popular with business professionals as well as adventure seekers and frequent flyers. There are current four policy options.

You can also secure a rental car damage policy from Allianz, and it may cost you less than $10 per day.  When we ran the quote for our single sample traveler from Florida on this website, our quotes ranged from $66 to $103 with three domestic plans offered.

Travel Insured International

Is it possible that we found another travel insurance company with an A+ rating?  Yes, it is. Travel Insured has an excellent reputation after more than 20 years of service, but they don’t offer a lot of information about their plan options unless you run a detailed quote on their website. What we can assure is that they offer a wide range of policies with all the standard coverage options, and they provide international coverage. You can get fast quotes by filling out a short form on the website.

The quote system is a bit more involved for this company. You will need to enter your home state and your destination state before you can see the available plans. Your quote will vary depending on the destination, so we weren’t able to complete a quote for our sample traveler on this website.

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