Where to buy travel insurance: direct, comparison site, or broker

Four kinds of seller will sell you travel insurance for a trip from the United States: the insurer itself, a comparison site, a broker, or whoever sold you the trip. Most guides to this question are written by one of those four. This one is written by a broker, so weigh the last section accordingly.

The useful thing to know first is that the decision has almost nothing to do with price.

The price is the same wherever you buy it

Travel insurance rates in the United States are filed with state insurance regulators. An insurer files what it will charge for a given plan at a given traveller age, trip cost and destination, and that filed rate is what has to be charged. A broker cannot discount it. A comparison site cannot mark it up.

So the same plan from the same insurer should cost the same in all four places. When two quotes differ, you are not looking at the same plan — and that happens more often than people expect, because plan names get reused across tiers. Two quotes that look alike can differ in which cancellation reasons they accept, or in the medical limit they carry.

What does change: how much you see, and who picks up the phone

Two things vary by where you buy. The first is how many insurers you get to compare. The second — which matters more and gets discussed less — is who you are dealing with when something goes wrong mid-trip.

Buying direct from the insurer

You go to one insurer's site and buy one of its plans. It is the simplest route, and it is the right one when you already know which insurer and which plan you want.

The limitation is that you see one insurer's answer to your trip. Insurers differ substantially on the things people actually claim for: a condition someone already has, a delay that makes you miss the ship, a hospital bill in a country where your own health plan does not follow you. One insurer's view of your trip is a sample of one.

Buying through a comparison site

A comparison site shows several insurers side by side and is paid a commission on the sale. For a straightforward trip with healthy travellers, it is a reasonable way to shop.

What to look into is what happens after you buy. Many comparison sites are a shopfront: the sale completes, and from then on you deal with the insurer's claims department. That is fine until you have a claim that needs somebody to make the case for you.

Buying through a broker

A broker holds appointments with several insurers, is licensed to sell on their behalf, and is paid a commission by whichever insurer you choose. Because rates are filed, that commission is already inside the premium — the plan does not cost more than it would direct.

What you get for it is the comparison, and with some brokers, help when you claim. What you should be clear-eyed about is that a broker shows you the insurers it holds appointments with, which is not every insurer in the market. Ask which ones. Ask why those.

Buying from the travel agent or the cruise line

The cover offered at checkout when you book a trip is usually one product the seller has an arrangement to distribute. It is convenient, and it is one option — selected for the seller's catalogue rather than for your trip.

It is worth putting it beside at least one other quote before accepting it, particularly if anyone travelling has a medical history, or if the trip cost is large enough that the cancellation benefit is the part that matters.

What actually separates two similar plans

When you do compare, these are the fields worth reading rather than skimming: the list of accepted cancellation reasons; whether a waiver for a condition you already have is available, and what you must do to earn it; the emergency medical limit; whether medical evacuation takes you to a hospital of your choosing or the nearest adequate one; and whether the plan pays before or after any other cover you hold.

Those five decide most claims. Where two otherwise similar plans differ in price, the difference usually traces back to one of them.

When a broker is not the right answer

Three cases where going direct is the better move. If you already know the exact plan you want, a broker is an extra step. If the trip is short and inexpensive enough that the whole premium is small, the comparison is not worth your time. And if you want a specific insurer a broker has no appointment with, you have to go to that insurer.

A broker who will not tell you any of that is selling rather than advising.

How we work, and how we are paid

Travel Defend is a licensed insurance broker. We are not an insurer: we do not underwrite plans and we do not decide claims. Both of those belong to the insurer, and they are governed by the policy document you are issued.

We quote a deliberately short list of insurers rather than everything on the market, because a page of near-identical plans is not a comparison. We are paid a commission by the insurer when you buy, the plan costs the same as buying it direct, and we help our own customers through the claims process at no extra charge.

There is a longer version of how we work and why, and if you would rather skip to numbers for your own trip you can compare live prices.