Best senior travel insurance 2024 (2024)

Our picks at a glance

What makes a travel insurance plan the best choice for seniors?

The best senior travel insurance plans include a comprehensive set of coverages, including:

• Baggage delay and lost baggage: Pays for clothing and toiletries if your bags are delayed or lost
• Cancel for any reason (CFAR): Enables you to recover part of your nonrefundable costs if you cancel your trip for a reason not already covered under your policy’s cancellation coverage
• Emergency medical: Pays for doctor’s fees, hospital bills, X-rays and lab costs if you fall ill or sustain an injury while traveling
• Emergency evacuation: Covers transportation costs if you must be transported to another medical facility or return home due to illness or injury
• Repatriation of remains: Pays to return home the remains of an insured who dies while traveling
• Trip cancellation and interruption: Reimburses you for trip costs if you must cancel your trip or return home early due to covered reasons such as illness or injury

How much does senior travel insurance cost?

To find out the cost of senior travel insurance, you need to request a quote. Insurers determine plan costs based on individual factors, including your:

• Age: Typically, the older you are, the higher your premiums will be.
• Coverage amount: The more coverage you require, the more it will cost. Maximum coverage amounts may vary by age.
• Optional coverages: Adding extra coverages such as CFAR will increase your premium.
• Destination: Medical costs vary by country. Health care costs run high in the United States but are less expensive in some other countries.
• Trip costs: Typically, travel insurance plans cost 4% to 10% of the cost of your trip.
• Length of stay: The longer your trip, the higher your premium will be.

What is covered by travel insurance for seniors?

The level of coverage will depend on the insurer and plan you choose. Many plans cover:

• Accidental death and dismemberment
• Baggage and personal effects
• Emergency evacuation (nonmedical)
• Medical costs related to accidents or illnesses, including anesthesia, COVID expenses, diagnostic tests, doctor visits, emergency room visits, in-patient and out-patient care, laboratory work and surgery.
• Medical evacuation
• Missed connections
• Repatriation of remains
• Trip delays

When shopping for travel insurance, request quotes from several providers, paying close attention to included coverages and optional protections available.

What to look for in senior travel insurance

Start by looking for insurers that offer plans which fit the length of your stay. Some plans offer up to 90 days of coverage, while others provide coverage for extended stays.

Make sure a plan covers the activities in which you plan to engage. Some policies exclude medical care for injuries caused by high-risk activities such as mountain climbing, skydiving or off-piste skiing.

Find out if a plan covers your preexisting medical conditions. Note that Medicare provides limited medical coverage outside the United States.

Choose a plan that includes baggage and personal effects, personal liability (especially if you’re traveling internationally) and trip cancellation coverages. If you might extend your stay, you’ll need a plan that allows for policy extensions.

Methodology

Our examination of the best travel insurance plans for older travelers resulted in a scoring system that prioritized price and medical coverage (including preexisting conditions). As such, price and medical coverage accounted for 40% of a plan’s score. Here’s how we weighted each category we scored:

Average premium (20%)

Premium accounts for 20% of a plan’s score because it’s a key factor in travelers’ decisions about which travel insurance to buy. If a plan’s premiums are too high, a traveler might not choose it, even if it offers high coverage amounts. Therefore, plans with lower premiums received higher scores.

Cancel for any reason coverage (CFAR) offered (10%)

CFAR coverage allows you to cancel your travel purchase for any reason, whereas you’d normally be restricted to a certain number of covered cancellations with your plan’s standard trip cancellation coverage. CFAR plans typically reimburse you for a certain percentage of your trip cost, with many companies offering 50% to 75% reimbursem*nt. Plans with higher reimbursem*nt percentages earned higher scores.

Emergency medical coverage: primary or secondary (10%)

Supplemental insurance policies like travel coverage are either primary or secondary. Primary coverage means the plan covers you no matter what other type of insurance you have. Secondary coverage covers you after any applicable plans kick in. Plans with primary coverage earned a higher score because primary coverage simplifies the claims process.

Emergency medical coverage amount (10%)

If you face a medical emergency abroad and your insurance company covers it, you usually have a maximum coverage amount of anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000. Once you use up that coverage amount, you have to pay your expenses out of pocket if you don’t have any other insurance you can use. Plans with higher coverage amounts led to higher scores.

No look-back period for preexisting conditions (10%)

Travel insurance policies sometimes have rules about covering preexisting conditions that require medical care during a covered trip. A “look-back period” refers to the time you have to be symptom-free in order to get coverage for a preexisting condition.

Medical evacuation and repatriation limit (10%)

If you require evacuation from the country you’re traveling to because of your medical emergency (including return travel to the United States), travel insurance policies may pay up to a certain amount. This coverage tends to be higher than emergency medical coverage, with the best plans offering $1 million limits. Companies with higher limits earned higher scores.

Travel delay (9%)

Travel insurance policies usually cover the costs of trip delays, such as when a flight is canceled and you have to make a last-second hotel booking for the night. Travel delay coverage has three parts to it: per-person limits, per-day limits and the minimum number of hours you have to be delayed to get the coverage. Companies with higher limits and lower minimum delays earned higher scores.

Baggage delay (6%)

Baggage delay coverage is similar to travel delay coverage in that it provides a daily dollar amount you’re entitled to if your baggage delay meets the minimum hour requirement. Policies that offered higher limits and shorter minimum delay times earned better scores.

Baggage and personal items loss (6%)

Should your baggage or personal items become lost, stolen or damaged during your travel, baggage and personal items loss coverage can help offset the cost of replacing or fixing what was lost. Insurers usually provide a per-person and per-day limit; those with higher limits earned higher scores.

Trip interruption reimbursem*nt rate (3%)

Trip interruption coverage can help reimburse the cost of any travel you don’t get to participate in because your trip is cut short by covered reasons. Trip interruption coverage is usually expressed as a percentage, like 100% or 150%. We gave higher scores to companies with higher trip cancellation reimbursem*nt rates.

Interruption for any reason (IFAR) coverage (3%)

The usual trip interruption coverage only covers you if you have to interrupt your trip for specific reasons. IFAR coverage reimburses you if you have to interrupt your trip for any reason not already covered by your policy. Like CFAR, IFAR coverage offers to pay a percentage of your trip costs. Companies with higher reimbursem*nt rates earned higher scores.

Hurricane and weather delay (3%)

Hurricane and weather coverage can help reimburse the cost of a trip, in general, if weather cancels your flight, makes your lodging uninhabitable and, in some cases, requires a mandatory evacuation of the area you’re staying in. This coverage is often associated with hurricanes and typhoons, which is why it requires you to purchase the coverage before a storm is named. Companies with lower minimum times to activate coverage received higher scores.

What didn’t make the cut

Twelve companies did not make it into our selections of the best travel insurance plans for seniors. Though all of them scored over the three-star threshold required to be considered for a category winner, each company that didn’t make the cut was either held back by a poor score in a certain category or, as is the case with some companies, they didn’t stand out enough in any single category. Some of the insurers that didn’t make it into our rankings included Berkshire Hathaway, John Hanco*ck, IMG, Tin Leg and Travelex.