When should I buy travel insurance — at booking or before I go?
Cancellation cover runs from the day you buy, not from the day you fly — which makes the gap between booking and buying the single most expensive habit in travel insurance.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 8 min
- Read
- 2 min
Short answer
Buy it on the day you book, before you have paid anything you could not lose. Cancellation cover starts at purchase, so a policy bought a week before departure covers nothing that went wrong in the months in between. The medical and baggage sections only start on the trip, but the cancellation section is what you are buying early.
A travel policy has two clocks. The medical, baggage and disruption sections run for the dates of the trip. The cancellation section runs from the moment the policy is issued. Almost everyone thinks about the first clock and buys accordingly, which leaves the whole booking-to-departure window uninsured — and that window is where illness, bereavement, redundancy and jury service actually happen.
Step by step
- Buy when you make the first non-refundable payment.That is usually the deposit on the trip or the flight booking. From that moment you have money at risk, and cancellation cover is what protects it.
- Check what the cancellation section actually covers.Typically illness or injury to you or a close relative, bereavement, redundancy, jury service, being called for military or emergency service, and serious damage to your home. It does not cover changing your mind, and it does not cover a foreseeable event.
- Declare medical conditions as at the day you buy.Screening is done at purchase. Buying early means screening early, which is why the continuing duty to update matters — see the disclosure guide.
- Check the trip is inside the policy period.For a single-trip policy the cover has to span the whole journey, from leaving home to getting back. For an annual policy, check the maximum trip length and that the policy will still be in force on the return date.
- Do not double up unnecessarily.If you already hold an annual policy, buying a second single-trip policy for the same journey rarely helps: claims are usually settled on a contribution basis and you will not be paid twice.
Tips
- If you booked months ago and have not bought a policy, buy one today. It cannot pick up something that has already happened, but it protects the rest of the window.
- A policy bought after a named storm has been forecast, an airline has announced a strike or a relative has become ill will not cover that event — insurers exclude anything you knew about at purchase.
- For an expensive trip booked a long way ahead, cancellation cover is the section to check the limit on, not the medical one.
Common mistakes
- Buying at the airport — By then the entire cancellation window has passed uninsured, and the policy you can buy under time pressure is the one you have not read.
- Assuming the tour operator deposit is protected anyway — Package holiday protection covers the operator failing, not you having to cancel. Those are different risks with different remedies.
Questions people ask
Is it cheaper to buy early?
Not usually, but it covers more, because you get the whole cancellation window rather than a fraction of it for the same premium.
Can I buy after booking but before paying the balance?
Yes, and you should — but the deposit you have already paid is only covered for events that happen after the policy starts.