Travelex separates itself by offering a plan exclusively made for road trips around the U.S. Like other travel insurance companies, Travelex offers online quotes if you answer a few questions. It also offers some more specialized features like cancel for any reason travel insurance and sports equipment delay coverage.
Business Insider compared Travelex to the best travel insurance companies and found it to be a standout option, with a range of coverage options that suit a wide variety of needs.
Travelex Travel Insurance Pros and Cons
Travelex Travel Insurance Pros
- Kids-included pricing on Ultimate plans
- Offers a low-cost Essential plan
- Relatively low premiums
Travelex Travel Insurance Cons
- CFAR not available on Essential or Advantage plan
- Emergency evacuation not as high as its competitors
- Preexisting condition waiver only available with Ultimate plan
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- Options to cover sports equipment
- Option to increase medical coverage
- Can cancel up to 48 hours before travel when CFAR option is purchased
- Affordable coverage for budget-conscious travelers
- Includes generous baggage delay, loss and trip delay coverage
- Optional "adventure sports" bundle available for riskier activities
- Pricier than some competitors with lower coverage ceilings
- Some competitors offer higher medical emergency coverage
Travelex travel insurance is one of the largest travel insurance providers in the U.S. providing domestic and international coverage options. It offers a basic, select, and America option. Read on to learn more.
- Optional CFAR insurance available with the Ultimate plan
- Travel delay insurance starting at $500 with the Advantage plan
- Emergency medical and dental coverage starting at $15,000
Compare Travelex Travel Insurance
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- Zero Complaint Guarantee
- Streamlined comparison platform
- Variety of partnered travel insurance companies
- Customer service team is difficult to reach
SquareMouth is an online marketplace that helps you choose a travel insurance policy from 32 companies that shares a comprehensive, streamlined overview page for each insurance provider.
SquareMouth Travel Insurance
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- Policy coverage includes most pre-existing health conditions
- Generous medical and evacuation amounts for peace of mind
- COVID coverage included by default on all insurance plans
- Offers a wide range of plans for various budgets and travel needs
- Some plans offer CFAR, “cancel for work reasons,” financial default, and unemployment coverage
- Limited add-on coverage options
- Baggage loss and delay coverage is low compared to competitors
Tin Leg travel insurance offers eight travel insurance plans to meet the unique needs of travelers.
Tin Leg- Tin Leg was founded in 2014 by the travel insurance industry experts at Squaremouth. Designed to meet the most common needs of travelers, these policies offer comprehensive Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption benefits, and a range of Emergency Medical and Medical Evacuation limits.
- Customers love the product and claims process
- Easy online quoting process
- Add-ons including pet care, rental car coverage, and cancel for any reason
- Easy debit cards for claims payment on your trip
- Only available to US citizens
- May be harder for non-tech savvy travelers
- Younger travelers can find cheaper travel insurance elsewhere
Travelex Travel Insurance Overview
Travelex is a travel insurance provider based in Omaha, Nebraska, providing coverage for unexpected travel expenses since 1996. Unlike other travel insurance providers with long lists of various plans and tiers, Travelex has three plans: Ultimate, Advantage, Essential.
These three plans offer a wide range of coverage options. The Essential plan offers bare bones coverage for those taking low-cost trips while the Ultimate plan offers heftier coverage and extra benefits like kids-included pricing and coverage for cancellations due to work. The Ultimate plan is also the only Travelex plan that offers preexisting condition waivers.
Travelex also offers medical-only travel insurance, which is even cheaper than the Essential plan.
That said, Travelex's emergency evacuation benefit lags behind its competitors, offering a maximum of $250,000 in coverage. While not a small benefit by any means, many of its competitors offer up to $1 million in emergency evacuation.
Additionally, Travelex reserves important add-ons like preexisting condition waivers, optional CFAR coverage, and child-inclusive pricing for its Ultimate plan.
However, Travelex is generally affordable, with especially low premiums for younger travelers.
Travelex Travel Insurance Benefits and Coverages
Travelex Travelex Travel Insurance offers three comprehensive trip cancellation policies with varying coverage at different price points. Travelex also offers a medical-only travel insurance plan and flight insurance. All of Travelex's policies offer 24/7 emergency assistance.
Travelex Essential
The Travelex Essential plan offers basic travel insurance that will cover the fundamentals for trips up to 30 days long. It offers the following benefits:
Trip cancellation: 100% of trip cost up to $10,000
Trip interruption: 100% of trip cost up to $10,000
Travel delay: $600 ($200 per day)
Baggage and personal effects: $750 ($500 per item)
Baggage delay: $200
Missed connection (air and cruise only): $150
Emergency medical expense: $25,000 (secondary coverage)
Emergency dental expense: $500
Emergency evacuation and repatriation: $200,000
The Essential plan offers a handful of optional additional features, like rental car damage, adventure activities coverage,, accidental death for air travel, pet care, and additional baggage coverage.
That said, it lacks key additions found with some of its more advanced plans like CFAR coverage, preexisting condition waivers, and kids-inclusive pricing. It also lacks trip inconvenience coverage.
Travelex Advantage
The Advantage plan offers higher benefits than the Essential plan. It offers the following benefits for trips up to 30 days long:
Trip cancellation: 100% of trip cost up to $10,000
Trip interruption: 125% of trip cost up to $12,500
Travel delay: $1,000 ($250 per day)
Baggage and personal effects: $1,000 ($500 per item)
Baggage delay: $200
Missed connection (air and cruise only): $500
Emergency medical expense: $50,000 (primary coverage)
Emergency dental expense: $500
Emergency evacuation and repatriation: $250,000
The Advantage plan offers the same optional additions as the Essential plan, including rental car damage, adventure activities, accidental death for air travel, pet care, and additional baggage coverage.
It also has the same coverage gaps, like CFAR coverage, preexisting condition waivers, and kids-inclusive pricing. It also lacks trip inconvenience coverage.
Travelex Ultimate
The Ultimate option is more comprehensive compared to the previous plans. It offers the following benefits for trips up to 180 days long:
Trip cancellation: 100% of trip cost up to $50,000
Trip interruption: 150% of trip cost up to $75,000
Travel delay: $2,000 ($250 per day)
Baggage and personal effects: $2,000 ($500 per item)
Baggage delay: $500
Missed connection (air and cruise only): $750
Emergency medical expense: $250,000 (primary coverage)
Emergency dental expense: $500
Emergency evacuation and repatriation: $1 million
The Ultimate plan keeps the optional additions available with the Advantage and Essential plans, like rental car damage, adventure activities, accidental death for air travel, pet care, and additional baggage coverage.
However, the Ultimate plan also offers additions not available with lower tiers of coverage. It offers CFAR coverage, reimbursing 75% of your trip's cost, up to $7,500. It also offers additional medical coverage and cancel for business reasons.
Kids are automatically included in coverage as long as they are under 18. This plan also covers pre-existing conditions if the policy is purchased within 21 days of when your initial trip payment is due. If you're traveling for a sporting event, Ultimate specifically covers delays for sports equipment.
Travelex Travel Med Go
Travelex also offers a travel medical insurance plan. It doesn't cover trip cancellation, but that means the policy is much cheaper than a trip cancellation policy. This policy is for people who are looking to save on travel insurance, but still want medical coverage as they travel abroad.
The Travelex Travel Med Go plan includes the following benefits for trips up to 60 days long:
Trip interruption: $1,000 maximum
Travel delay: $500 ($200 daily limit)
Missed connection (air and cruise only): $300
Baggage and personal effects: $1,000 ($500 pet item)
Baggage delay: $500
Emergency evacuation and repatriation: $250,000
Emergency medical expense: $50,000 (primary coverage)
Emergency dental expense: $500
Additional benefits, like rental car damage, accidental death for air travel, additional medical, adventure activities, pet care, and additional baggage coverage are available.
Travelex Flight Insure/Flight Insure Plus
Travelex offers two tiers of flight insurance: Insure and Insure Plus. It offers the following benefits for trips up to 180 days long:
| Insure | Insure Plus | |
| Accidental death for air travel | Up to $1 million | Up to $1 million |
| Emergency medical and dental | Not included | Up to $10,000 |
| Emergency evacuation and repatriation | Not included | Up to $100,000 |
| Baggage and personal effects | Not included | $1,000 ($250 per item) |
| Baggage delay | Not included | $500 |
| Missed connection | Not included | $50 |
Additional Coverage Options Offered By Travelex (Riders)
Depending on your Travelex Travelex Travel Insurance policy, you may be able to get extra add-ons to your policy, including the following:
Car rental collision coverage
If you're buying the Advantage or the Ultimate plan, you can upgrade your coverage to include car rental collision coverage. Buyers ensure they're protected in an accident with a rental car. Travelex covers cars against accidents, vandalism, and natural events like flooding, fires, or hail.
AD&D common carrier (air only)
Advantage and Ultimate plans also offer upgrades to the standard AD&D coverage. This covers accidental death and dismemberment should anything happen during your flight or while you board or deplane. The AD&D common carrier coverage add-on is limited to $1,000,000.
Additional medical coverage
Especially when visiting another country, the additional medical coverage add-on with Ultimate does three key things:
- Helps you avoid unexpected medical bills
- Ensures prompt treatment in an emergency
- Provides peace of mind for the unexpected
With this add-on, you can feel more secure with an extra $50,000 in medical coverage plus $500,000 in medical evacuation coverage. This is on top of what you get with the Ultimate plan, which doubles your coverage.
Adventure sports coverage
Consider the Ultimate policy with an adventure sports coverage upgrade if you want to engage in extreme sports or risky adventures. This can include skydiving, mountain climbing, or parasailing. The good news is the Advantage and the Ultimate plans cover some activities already, including hiking, scuba diving, horseback riding, and bungee cord jumping. The adventure sports coverage add-on can protect you during other high-risk activities.
Cancel for any reason
The flexibility to cancel your trip and recoup some expenses is a significant perk, as many things could happen. Among the best CFAR travel insurance policies, Travelex's Ultimate plan allows for a CFAR add-on. As you can imagine from the name, you can cancel for any reason as long as it's within 48 hours of your departure. In addition, you are eligible for up to 75% of the insured trip cost. Buyers must purchase cancel for any reason coverage alongside the base plan within 15 days of the first trip-related payment.
Travelex Travel Insurance Cost
The average cost of travel insurance ranges from 4% to 8%. The rates for Travelex Travel Insurance vary depending on where you're traveling to, which plan you select, your age, the cost of your trip, and the length of the trip.
Below are a few examples of coverage options and costs from Travelex.
A 23-year-old from Illinois taking a week-long, $3,000 trip to Italy.
| Travelex Plan | Cost |
| Travel Med Go | $33 |
| Essential | $75 |
| Advantage | $98 |
| Ultimate | $112 |
As you can see, travel insurance for this trip is well below the industry average, ranging from 1.1% to 3.7% of the trip's cost. This is to be expected for a young traveler, as insurance for younger travelers is generally cheaper.
A 30-year-old from California taking a two-week trip to Japan for $4,000.
| Travelex Plan | Cost |
| Travel Med Go | $33 |
| Essential | $106 |
| Advantage | $122 |
| Ultimate | $145 |
Once again, rates for this trip are below the industry average, ranging from 0.8% to 3.6%.
A Texas family (two 40-year-old parents with a 10-year-old and 4-year-old) taking a two-week trip to Australia for $20,000.
| Travelex Plan | Cost |
| Travel Med Go | $134 |
| Essential | $624 |
| Advantage | $706 |
| Ultimate | $420 |
Rates for this trip are still below the industry average, ranging from to 0.7% to 3.5%. It's worth noting that because the Ultimate plan offers child-inclusive pricing, it's actually cheaper than the Advantage plan.
A 65-year-old couple from New York taking a $6,000 trip to Mexico for two weeks.
| Travelex Plan | Cost |
| Travel Med Go | $82 |
| Essential | $314 |
| Advantage | $370 |
| Ultimate | $604 |
Travel insurance for the 65-year-old couple is more expensive than the previous travelers. The Ultimate plan charges 10% of the trip's cost, which is expected for older travelers.
How to Purchase and Manage a Travelex Travel Insurance Policy
You'll want to purchase your Travelex policy soon after you book a trip and make an initial trip deposit.
Once you consider your needs and options, you can start the purchasing process by requesting a quote on Travelex's website. You'll need to provide your age, trip cost, home state, travel dates, and booking date.
Depending on your policy and when you booked the trip, you may be eligible for add-ons like CFAR coverage or preexisting condition waivers as long as you purchase your policy within the specified time frame.
Note that you have a 21-day free look period after purchasing, which means you can cancel the policy during this time and receive a refund.
How to File a Claim With Travelex
To file a claim with Travelex travel services, you can complete a claim form online with your Plan ID number. Ensure you have receipts, confirmations, medical documents, and other supporting documents.
For additional questions, you can contact Travelex's underwriters: Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company and Zurich Travel Assist. You can reach BHTP by phone at 1-855-205-6054 or by email at travelex.claims@bhspecialty.com. You can contact Zurich Travel Assist via phone at 1-800-501-4781 or by email at claims@zurichtravelassist.com.
Travelex Travel Insurance Customer Reviews and Ratings
Travelex travel insurance is well-reviewed by customers, receiving an average rating of 3.9 stars on Trustpilot and 4.43 stars on SquareMouth. Reviews spoke highly of Travelex's agents when purchasing a policy and reported quick reimbursements on claims.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners' complaint index rates insurance companies based on how many complaints they receive against its share of the market. A 1.00 means that a company has an expected number of complaints based on its size. A lower score indicates fewer complaints than expected and a higher number indicates more complaints than expected. Zurich American Insurance Company, which underwrites Travelex policies, scored a 0.63 , indicating that it has fewer complaints than expected.
Zurich America has an A+ (Superior) rating from AM Best, meaning it's ery likely to meet its financial obligations, like paying out on claims.
Travelex Travel Insurance Alternatives
See how Travelex Travel Insurance stacks up against the competition.
Travelex Travel Insurance vs. Allianz Travel Insurance
When shopping for travel insurance, there are many options out there on the market. One of the foremost leaders in the space is Allianz. It offers more plans than Travelex travel insurance. In addition, Allianz Allianz Travel Insurance may provide you with more choices if you want to buy coverage for a period (such as all trips meeting specific guidelines in the next calendar year).
However, one major perk for Travelex is the ability to add on cancel for any reason coverage easily. Unfortunately, CFAR is not available via Allianz online. According to our research, Allianz plans also lack pet coverage, sports equipment coverage, and other specialty options available with Travelex's Ultimate.
Read our Allianz travel insurance review.
Travelex Travel Insurance vs. AIG Travel Guard
Another contender in the travel insurance space is AIG Travel Guard. Like Travelex Travelex Travel Insurance, AIG offers three major travel insurance coverage options. These include the Essential Plan, Preferred Plan, and Deluxe Plan.
However, AIG Travel Guard stands out as it also offers an annual travel insurance option. All Travelex plans are meant to be purchased far ahead. AIG separates itself with a unique travel insurance plan for last-minute coverage called the Pack N' Go Plan offering only post-departure benefits. The Travel Guard Preferred plan is similar to the Travelex Select Plan, as both cover 100% of trip cancellations and $50,000 for medical expenses.
Read our AIG Travel Guard travel insurance review.
Travelex Travel Insurance vs. Credit Cards
If you have a rewards credit card, you may not realize some cards include limited travel insurance benefits. Typically, this is limited to small amounts for trip cancellation, trip delay, and baggage delays. In addition, some credit cards and your auto insurance company may cover rental cars if you're traveling domestically. If looking into travel insurance coverage, you can see if you get any benefits via your credit card.
Credit card travel protection may be limited compared to a comprehensive travel insurance plan through a company like Travelex Travelex Travel Insurance. If you don't have a credit card but are looking at one as a replacement, you may have to contend with a high annual fee. It's best to check out credit cards with travel insurance coverage and any fees. Then you can compare individual policies with Travelex to see what's a good fit for your needs.
Read our guide to the best credit cards with travel insurance.
Travelex Travel Insurance FAQs
Travelex's simple plan structure sets it apart from other providers. Additionally, Travelex's Ultimate offers kids-included pricing, which covers children under 17 when they're traveling with a covered adult.
Travelex's Ultimate plan offers preexisting condition waivers if you purchase your policy within 21 days of booking your trip. Advantage and Essential plans don't cover preexisting conditions.
Travelex is a travel insurance company based in the U.S. and also provides travel insurance policies for U.S. citizens.
Why You Should Trust Us: What Went Into Our Travelex Review
As part of the Travelex Travelex Travel Insurance review, we looked at the top travel insurance companies and compared plans based on various factors. These include the number of options, affordability, coverage limits, cancel for any reason add-ons, customer service, and credibility.
Travelex's Advantage plan is a pay-for-what-you-get situation, where the coverage limits are low and add-ons are limited, but the price is fairly low. Travel USA offers decent coverage for short, domestic trips such as a road trip. Ultimate is fairly competitive for its price, with kids-included pricing and a handful of early purchase benefits. Additionally, those who participate in extreme sports may consider Travelex for coverage.
Read more about how Business Insider rates insurance products.
