Travel insurance methodology

How we research travel insurance

We are not an insurance agency and we do not sell insurance. We are a comparison and information site. What we can do is explain the types of travel cover, show what each carrier publishes about its own policies, and point you to the carrier's own quote route for a price that reflects your trip.

How we research

Our research follows the same steps for every travel insurance page on the site.

1. Start with the official source, not a roundup. For rules, that means the state departments of insurance and state statutes. For carrier facts, it means the carrier's own published policy information. For destination information, it means the US State Department's travel advisories and the destination's own entry requirements. Secondary sources (articles, roundups, aggregators) are never the source of a figure. If an official source cannot be found, the figure is not published.
2. Copy the figure exactly as the source prints it. No rounding, no estimating, no "correcting" a source's own rounding.
3. Name the profile, the trip, and the date, every time. A travel insurance figure is meaningless without the destination, the trip length and cost, the traveller's age, the cover chosen, and the date it describes. If any of those is missing from the source, the figure is not published.
4. Describe cover from the policy, not from a sales page. Trip cancellation, trip interruption, emergency medical cover, emergency evacuation, baggage, and cancel-for-any-reason (CFAR) terms are taken from the carrier's published policy information. Where the policy wording is not public, we say the detail is available only in the policy document.
5. Have every page reviewed by an editor before publication. Our editors are Enu Zehra and Ms. Kakka. They check every figure against its named source. A page is not published until the figures check out.
6. Re-verify on a fixed schedule. Pages are reviewed at least every six months. A figure past its review date is flagged, not silently left as if it were current. Destination advice is re-checked whenever the US State Department changes an advisory level.

The sources we use

State departments of insurance and state statutes. These are the sources for travel insurance rules on our pages. Travel insurance is regulated as property and casualty insurance in most states, and the rules (including cancel-for-any-reason requirements and free-look periods) differ by state. Every state-specific statement on the site carries the source and the date it was checked.

Carrier-published policy information. For each carrier shown on the site, we record what the carrier itself publishes: trip cancellation and interruption cover, emergency medical and evacuation cover, baggage cover, CFAR terms, pre-existing condition rules, age limits, destination exclusions, and the quote route. We do not record a premium, because no carrier publishes a single premium. A premium is calculated for the individual trip.

US State Department travel advisories. Destination pages use the State Department's advisory levels and the destination's entry requirements as the source for travel conditions. Advisory levels change, so every destination page carries the date the advisory was checked.

NAIC Complaint Index. The NAIC publishes a complaint index for insurers, based on a three-year window of confirmed complaints relative to market share. We use it as the basis for future complaint-based comparisons. We publish no complaint ranking that we have not computed from the NAIC's own published index, and we publish the method beside the ranking.

AM Best financial strength ratings. AM Best publishes financial strength ratings for insurers. Where we show a financial-strength figure, it is AM Best's published rating, named as such, with the date it was checked. We do not convert ratings into our own scores.

What do we not publish, and why?

There is no travel insurance average on this site. A meaningful average would need a fixed profile (a stated destination, trip length and cost, traveller age, and cover) published by an official source. No free official source publishes one in a usable form. The figures that circulate in roundups are usually a single carrier's quote for a single trip, or an average of quotes from a small panel of carriers, presented without the trip profile that would make it checkable. Publishing such a figure as "the average" would mislead more than it would inform, so we do not publish it.

The same reasoning applies to "cheapest travel insurance" claims. A cheapest list is only honest if the prices were collected for the same trip, at the same time, by the same method, and the method is printed on the page. Until we have a real price-collection method with published results, there is no cheapest list on this site. Our future plan is to collect sample rates by shopping fixed sample trips on carriers' own websites, with the method printed beside the results. That collection has not been done yet, and no sample rate will be published until it is.

Cancel-for-any-reason cover deserves a specific note. CFAR reimburses a percentage of the trip cost, and the percentage, the deadline for buying it, and the conditions for using it all vary by policy. We do not state a CFAR percentage on this site, because there is no single percentage: it is a term of the individual policy, and the policy wording is the only source for it. Our CFAR pages explain how CFAR works and what to check in the wording, and they do not give a figure.

What we do not do

• We do not publish travel insurance premiums. Every travel insurance premium on this site is Quote-only: no price figure appears on the entry at all, not even a "from" figure. The entry links to the carrier's own quote route instead.
• We do not invent ratings. No carrier rating appears without its source, scale, and date stated on the same card. No "best company" verdict is drawn from anything less than a published method.
• We do not publish savings claims. No savings figure appears unless the basis (who saved, versus what, over what period, from what data, dated) is stated beside it in the same view. If the basis cannot be stated, the figure does not appear.
• We do not give travel or medical advice. Our pages explain how travel insurance works and what to compare. They do not tell you whether a destination is safe, what medical care you need, or whether a policy is right for your health or your trip. Those are questions for the State Department's advisories, your doctor, and the policy wording.
• We do not take payment for placement. No carrier pays to appear, to rank higher, or to be shown first. Carrier entries are listed by the cover they offer, not by any payment.
• We do not show carrier logos, "Buy now" buttons, or lead-generation funnels. We ask for your ZIP code and basic facts only. We never ask for contact details, and nothing you enter travels to a carrier.

How often we update

Pages are reviewed at least every six months; the next review is due May 2027. Carrier facts are re-checked against the carrier's own published information at each review. Destination advice is re-checked whenever the US State Department changes an advisory level, and at each six-month review at the latest. When a carrier changes its cover options or a destination changes its entry requirements, the page is updated and the "Last reviewed" date changes with it. When a source publishes a correction, we correct the figure and add a correction note under our corrections policy.

Limitations: read this before you decide

• No comparison covers every insurer. Carriers that do not publish usable information, write only in a few states, or sell only through agents may not appear here at all. Check a carrier's own site for the final price and the full policy wording.
• The policy document is the contract. Our pages summarise cover; they do not replace the policy. Cancellation reasons, medical limits, evacuation conditions, exclusions, and definitions are in the policy wording, and the wording governs.
• Travel insurance does not replace health insurance. Emergency medical cover in a travel policy is usually limited, and it does not cover routine care or treatment for conditions excluded by the policy. Read the medical limits before you travel.
• CFAR must usually be bought within a short window after the first trip payment, and it reimburses only a percentage of the trip cost. The exact terms are in the policy wording.
• Destination conditions change. An advisory level, an entry requirement, or a local rule that was current when a page was reviewed may have changed since. Check the State Department's current advisory before you travel.
• Sorting, filtering, and side-by-side comparison need JavaScript. Without JavaScript the full comparison is shown on the page, but it cannot be re-sorted, filtered, or compared side by side in the browser.

Sources

1. State departments of insurance and state statutes, as cited on each page (travel insurance rules, CFAR requirements, free-look periods).
2. Carrier-published policy information (cancellation, interruption, medical, evacuation, baggage, and CFAR terms; pre-existing condition rules; quote routes).
3. US Department of State, travel advisories and destination entry information (as cited on destination pages, with the date checked). https://travel.state.gov/
4. National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Complaint Index (public index, three-year window). https://www.naic.org/
5. AM Best, financial strength ratings (as cited where shown). https://www.ambest.com/

Questions or corrections: hello@countrypilot.net (email only) or our corrections policy. Content reviewed by editors Enu Zehra and Ms. Kakka.

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See also: How we calculate averages · Editorial policy · Corrections policy