What Is Travel Insurance? 

Travel insurance is a plan you purchase that protects you from certain financial risks and losses that can occur while traveling. These losses can be minor, like a delayed suitcase, or significant, like a last-minute trip cancellation or a medical emergency overseas.

In addition to financial protection, the other huge benefit of travel insurance is access to assistance services, wherever you are in the world. Our elite team of travel and medical experts can arrange medical treatment in an emergency, monitor your care, serve as interpreters, help you replace lost passports and so much more. Sometimes, they even save travelers’ lives.

A few things you should know about travel insurance:

• Benefits vary by plan. It’s important to choose a plan that fits your needs, your budget and your travel plans. Here are definitions of all available travel insurance benefits.
• Travel insurance can’t cover every possible situation. Allianz Global Assistance offers named perilstravel insurance, which means it covers only the specific situations, events, and losses included in your plan documents, and only under the conditions we describe.
• Travel insurance is designed to cover unforeseeable events— not things you could easily see coming, or things within your control. If, for example,  you wait to buy insurance for your beach trip until after a named hurricane is hustling toward your destination, your losses wouldn’t be covered.

Allianz Global Assistance is the largest travel insurance company. It's owned by Allianz SE, the world’s largest diversified insurance company. Thanks to the scale of its parent company, Allianz can offer better insurance at a lower rate. The company typically works fast on claims and resolves most complaints quickly and to the customer's satisfaction. 

If you want to read travel insurance horror stories, you can find plenty of them on this nonprofit consumer advocacy site.