Family Travel Insurance: Comprehensive Protection for Your Loved Ones (2024)

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• Your travel insurance may already cover your entire family, including children.
• Travel insurance can cover a single trip or multiple trips within a set time, usually a year.
• Travel insurance for families should have larger coverage limits than single-traveler plans.
• Compare travel insurance coverage options and rates with SquareMouth.

Before they were four months old, my daughters went on their first long-haul international flights, stopping in Dubai before reaching Australia to visit family. Since then, I've learned a lot about traveling with kids.

It essentially boils down to expecting the unexpected. Whether it's a child needing a sudden ER visit just before departure (shoutout to my oldest) or your luggage with all the baby essentials going missing (which happened to my second), you've got to be prepared to roll with the punches, which is where travel insurance comes in.

You might not think much about travel insurance and kids, but if you're a jet-setting family, you probably should. The question of what travel insurance covers is broad. It may cover medical emergencies abroad, lost luggage, and interrupted trips.

Some policies will even cover cancellations for illness, which parents know always seem to strike at the worst possible times. Here's what you should know about travel insurance before starting your next family vacation.

Key Benefits of Family Travel Insurance

Comprehensive coverage

Family travel insurance covers all traveling family members under a specific policy. Comprehensive coverage in family travel insurance includes emergency medical expenses, cancellations and interruptions, delays, and lost luggage for your entire group.

Cost-effectiveness

While adding your kid to your travel insurance policy is the simplest way to get coverage, it's not always the best travel insurance for your family's needs. More extensive trips and larger families often have to purchase family travel insurance. Insuring multiple people on one policy allows you to score lower rates than buying insurance for each person.

Types of Coverage in Family Policies

Medical and emergency assistance

Your U.S. healthcare plan may not cover you in other countries. So, you could be responsible for a hefty bill if you get into an accident and require medical care abroad. Fortunately, a comprehensive travel insurance plan includes travel medical insurance, which covers emergency medical expenses such as treatments, hospital stays, and medication. Insurers also offer emergency evacuation and return to the U.S. for medical care at your home institution.

Trip cancellation and interruption

Travel insurance provides coverage for families facing unexpected changes in travel plans. It covers prepaid, nonrefundable expenses incurred when you have to cancel your trip or when your trip is interrupted due to covered unforeseen events, like a pandemic or natural disaster.

Special Considerations for Family Insurance

Coverage for children and elderly family members

Your travel insurance may already cover your entire family, including children. Many policies allow you to add children 17 or under as long as they travel with at least one legal guardian. Some policies enable grandparents to add kids, too. Often, adding kids is free, but if you're traveling with more than one kiddo, you may need to pay for additional travel insurance coverage.

Policies may have exclusions for those with pre-existing conditions, which is an important consideration for those traveling with elderly families. The good news is that many insurers offer a pre-existing condition waiver if certain conditions are met.

Family-specific inclusions and exclusions

A comprehensive family travel insurance plan covers all family members for an additional fee. Your plan includes medical and emergency assistance and evacuation, trip cancellation and interruption, and stolen or damaged baggage loss.

However, your policy excludes coverage for the following reasons:

• Foreseeable events (covered in a cancel for any reason policy (CFAR))
• Travel restrictions from government authorities (covered in a CFAR policy)
• Pre-existing conditions (covered with a pre-existing condition waiver)
• High-risk activities (covered with an adventure and sports add-on)

Choosing the Right Family Travel Insurance

Assessing your family's needs

Assessing your family's needs can help you find the right family travel insurance. Some factors to consider before purchasing a policy are travel frequency and duration, the risk level of your destination, budget, which family members are traveling, and any planned activities.

Comparing family policies

Kids traveling without parents need different travel insurance

Sooner or later, your child might want to go on a trip with their cousins, friends, or neighbors. Children traveling without a parent need travel insurance for unaccompanied minors or single-child travel insurance. Child-specific travel insurance provides the same coverage as other policies, targeting the youngest solo travelers.

High-flying families can buy a multi-trip travel insurance policy

If your little ones have frequent flier miles, you might be the type of family to benefit from a multi-trip policy, also known as annual travel insurance. This type of policy covers your entire family for the whole year, which means you'll have one less to-do item on your list before booking flights on a whim.

Annual plans may have more limitations. Annual plans limit the length of covered trips, usually 30 days or under. Many limit the riders you can add such as pre-existing condition and CFAR coverage.

Of course, you should expect to also pay more upfront for the same coverage. Depending on how often you travel, though, an annual plan could save you compared to buying a new one for every trip. Just make sure you check your policy documents for any restrictions.

Big kids qualify for travel insurance too

As more experienced parents like to tell me, the years fly by. At some point, your kids aren't, well, children anymore. But many are still dependent on mom and dad. Luckily, some travel insurance policies allow you to add older offspring, often till the age of 21.

If you've started a tradition of buying travel insurance, your bigger kids might purchase separate policies for spring break weekends and other friend trips. For many parents, looping young adult dependents into the family plan is one more way to reduce unnecessary hassles.

Parents traveling without kids should consider a cancel for any reason policy

Sometimes kids can impact your travel plans, even when traveling without them. Parents traveling sans children can enjoy the extra peace of mind from CFAR travel insurance. As the name suggests, this coverage lets you cancel because of a sick kid, a must-see school event, or anything else. Of course, each policy has a time limit.

You have to cancel your plans before the trip happens. Some companies may have different cutoffs. So make sure to check your policy documents. However, as long as you meet that deadline, you won't have to worry about unseen coverage exclusions.

I just added this for a girls' trip to Italy without my daughters this spring. While I would hate to miss the pizza and gelato for any reason, knowing I could change plans if there were an emergency with my children was well worth the cost of adding cancel for any reason coverage.

You can find our guide on the best CFAR travel insurance here.

Purchasing Family Travel Insurance

Where and when to buy

Some credit cards offer travel insurance coverage. So, before purchasing a policy, check your benefits forcredit card travel protection. Then, figure out if you need to purchase extra travel insurance coverage.

You can buy travel insurance directly from an insurance provider or through an online comparison website to see multiple quotes at once. Travel agencies also offer insurance with your travel booking.

It's best to buy a policy before your departure date. Limitations on when you must purchase your policy vary by insurer and policy type. However, many insurers require you to purchase within 14 days after making your first trip deposit

Documentation and application process

According to Travelex insurance, these are the pieces of information you'll need to purchase travel insurance.

• Trip dates
• Travelers' names and ages
• Destination
• Initial trip deposit date
• Cost of trip by traveler (prepaid and nonrefundable expenses)

Depending on your coverage, your insurance company may ask for more information, such as pre-existing medical conditions and planned activities.

Utilizing Family Travel Insurance

Managing the Policy During Travel

Including your family members on a single policy makes managing your travel insurance easier. Be sure each family member knows the policy's information, including the policy number, coverages and exclusions, emergency hotline number, and how to file a claim. It would help to carry a digital or physical copy of the policy.

Handling claims and emergencies

If you encounter a medical emergency, trip disruption, or lost and stolen property, contact your travel insurance company's emergency assistance hotline. They can provide information on where to proceed or how to get your trip back on track.

Then, you'll want to file a claim for any unexpected expenses you've incurred. Travel insurance works on a reimbursem*nt model. You have to pay for those expenses out-of-pocket before your insurer reimburses you. So, it's important to retain documentation, like receipts, medical records, police records, etc., to file your claim.

In addition to supporting documents, you'll need to provide your policy information and details of the incident. Many insurers allow you to file a claim online but you can also do so over the phone with an agent.

Conclusion and Recommendations for Family Travel Insurance

Traveling with families is expensive and stressful, even for those who love it. However, travel insurance is a small expense that can reassure you that you're ready for whatever happens. Make sure to choose the best travel insurance policy for your family's needs and enjoy the peace of mind it provides on your next adventure.

Family travel insurance FAQs