The best travel insurance policies of 2018 revealed

Travelling isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. Luggage goes missing, accidents happen and before you know it you could be spending your hard-earned annual leave in a hospital bed. Not having the appropriate cover for travel blunders could turn a stressful situation into a full-blown catastrophe.

That’s where Mozo’s Experts Choice Travel Insurance Awards step in, revealing the best quality travel insurance policies of 2018 so you can travel with confidence knowing you’re covered no matter the situation.

“We’ve compared 60 travel insurance policies that met our comprehensive cover minimum to find the policies offering Australian travellers Exceptional Quality Travel Insurance,” said Mozo Data Manager, Peter Marshall.

To do this, experts had a baseline in which travel insurance policies could be considered Exceptional Quality Travel Insurance. Overall results were weighted towards overseas emergency medical coverage, luggage and personal effect coverage, and cancellation coverage.

“It’s important to set a standard for what constitutes Exceptional Quality and our award winners surpass these standards, providing great cover for a lot of unfavourable scenarios that could occur,” said Marshall.

“The awards themselves exist to give smart travellers the peace of mind knowing they’re covered for a wide range of possible events.”

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World2Cover, which was also named Travel Insurer of the Year, Cover-More, Qantas and Travel insurance Saver all took out two awards apiece and STA travel also received one.

“Unlimited cover for things such as medical, cancellation fees and additional accommodation are just a few features our top winners had in common,” said Marshall.

"These policies also offered benefits the average traveller might not think of until they really need them, such as generous limits on lost luggage cover, often up to $12,000 and hospital cash allowances often as high as $6,000.”

Marshall noted that comprehensive cover wasn’t just for risk-takers or adrenaline junkies as commonly thought, but had features the every-day traveller might need.

“Top quality policies cover you for common situations such as flight cancellations or luggage delays. As much as we don’t like to think about it, these things can happen to anyone,” he said.

“It can be tempting to just opt for the cheapest policy you can find, but travellers who opt for basic policies or head off without insurance could see themselves having to pay thousands of dollars if for example, they wind up sick or injured.”

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We crunched the numbers in our travel insurance calculator and found that for a 30-year-old travelling to the US for a week, World2Cover’s award-winning Top policy offers unlimited overseas medical cover as well as covering many other sticky situations, for $91.94.

Compare that cost to the average $5,220 price tag of an overnight stay in a US hospital* and it's easy to see how a great quality travel insurance policy can pay for itself.

“It’s a no-brainer - if you can’t afford insurance, you can’t afford to travel,” said Marshall.

“We’ve done the research so you don’t have to - our Exceptional Quality awards put this year’s best policies in one place so you can spend more time planning a great trip.”

For the full list of award winners, see our 2018 Mozo Experts Choice Travel Insurance Awards or use our travel insurance comparison tool to see how much you could be saving on your policy.

*Source: International Federation of Health Plans 2015 Comparative Price Report