Last updated: July 15th, 2026
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Travelling to Europe or Bali to escape the brittle winter Australian weather? I am keeping it simple – because I have a ton of work to catch up on after the birth of my child – so I’m sticking with simple domestic weekend getaways to Byron and the Adelaide Hills.
But regardless of your destination, let me ask you a serious question – have you chosen the best travel insurance for your needs?
A holiday can lead to devastating financial bills – unless you’re covered for unexpected emergencies or inconveniences.
And if you catch a stomach bug, like my wife Irene did a couple of years ago (in Mexico City, of all places), you may be stuck with a hospital bill that makes you want to vomit.
Again.
Back then, our American Express Platinum Card covered the $11,400 medical bill. Comprehensive travel insurance is included as one of the perks, and we relied on it to trot around the globe.
Now that we’re parenting a toddler back in Australia and only take 1-2 family holidays per year, the $1750 annual fee didn’t seem like great value.
So I decided not to renew my Amex membership – but compare a few travel insurance providers, so I could buy it on an ad-hoc basis.
With that in mind, I present you with a comparison of the best travel insurance providers in Australia.
Best Travel Insurance In Australia For 2026 Is:
- Zoom Insurance – best overall, best for skiing holidays.
- AllClear Insurance – best for seniors, best if you have pre-existing medical conditions.
- Fast Cover – best for cruising holidays.
- World2Cover – best for sighteeing in Europe and the USA.
- Butter Insurance – good cheap-and-cheerful travel insurer.
- Covermore – good all-round travel insurer.
- Insure&Go – good all-round travel insurer.
Before I unpack each insurance provider in detail, here are my controversial discoveries that most Aussies don’t know:
1. Most Base Policies Are Almost Identical.
Don’t waste time splitting hairs between things that don’t matter.
2. Australian Government won’t pay your bills.
If you get caught offguard in a tricky situation overseas, don’t expect the Aussie taxpayer to step in and save you. This is why travel insurance is essential (even though 14% of Australians disagree – see below).
3. Travel Insurance Is Mandatory In Some Countries.
Countries like the UAE and Singapore won’t let you in unless you have proof of travel insurance. Neither will all 26 countries in the Shengen area of Europe.
Important!
Wondering why my conclusions differ from the ones you see on Canstar and Finder? Because I’m a business owner, writing about my own experiences – not a $100m corporate juggernaut selling corporate partnerships.
1. Zoom Insurance.
Best overall, best for skiing holidays.
Zoom Insurance is underwritten by Lloyd’s of London. Yep, that company is not exactly a bunch of amateurs. This is a 230-year-old business that insures everything, from supertankers passing the Strait of Hormuz to old ladies flying to the annual crochet conference in Cyprus.
Applying for insurance is easy.
The interface is a bit more dated than AllClear’s (below), so expect it to take slightly longer – about 7-10 minutes – to get your quote.
But you get great, responsive customer service.
If something goes wrong, you can submit your claim either by calling them or online. But unlike AllClear, Zoom doesn’t have 24 hour customer service – it’s definitely a weakness.
You get several tiers of coverage (comprehensive, standard, medical only international, domestic only and frequent traveller). Comprehensive is the pick of the bunch, but is (predictably) on the more pricey side.
Important!
The price is very competitive. My test quote came in at $410 – one of the cheapest in this review.
The downside? The claiming process can be hit-and-miss. I’ve read a lot of reviews by people who mentioned 3-5 day gaps in communication from customer service.
I also don’t love the fact that they don’t cover costs resulting from issues caused by accommodation providers. So, if your hotel screws up your booking, you’re on your own.
Finally, unlike AllClear, Zoom doesn’t cover lost luggage. If your belongings get stolen at the airport or lost by the airline, you will have to pay for it out of your own pocket.
| Assessment Criteria | Score |
|---|---|
| Cost Of Cover | 4 |
| Ease Of Claim | 4 |
| Ease Of Signup | 5 |
2. AllClear Insurance.
Best for seniors, best if you have a pre-existing medical condition.
What’s my biggest fear when travelling? It’s racking up a massive medical bill overseas – only to discover that I’m not covered because of an exemption, cleverly hidden deep in the fineprint.
My wife actually has some chronic conditions that have the potential to mess with our travels, which is why I rank AllClear as the best travel insurance option for us.
Important!
This becomes even more important when you get older. AllClear does appear to be mostly aimed at seniors, but they’ll cover anyone above the age of 18.
The downside? It’s more expensive than most other options. I requested a quote for a 1-month long trip from Sydney to NYC, and the total cost came at $493. This is $80 more than Zoom Insurance and $46 more than FastCover.
Signup is easy and seamless. It took me about 7 minutes to submit my documents and ontain my quote.
The claims process is the best of all providers in this review – but not perfect. AllClear outsources it to a 3rd party provider, and it gets under some people’s skin.
I personally haven’t had to make a claim, so I can’t speak to it from first-hand experience, but my impression from reading reviews is that AllClear mostly struggles with cases where the claim’s supporting documentation is in another language. Sometimes, the company simply stops responding.
Getting paid takes between 2-4 weeks. I would have preferred this to be quicker. Amex paid for my wife’s hospital bill in Mexico in under 2 weeks.
What I do like is that you get a personal claims assistant, who you can call back on their own phone line. This means you don’t have to call the main switchboard and get routed to a different person every time.
This one is easy to overlook, but it makes all the difference when making a claim.
Don’t know about you, but I don’t want my insurer to sounds like they’re doing me a favour when discussing a payout. I want to feel being cared for.
| Assessment Criteria | Score |
|---|---|
| Cost Of Cover | 5 |
| Ease Of Claim | 4 |
| Ease Of Signup | 5 |
3. Fast Cover.
Best travel insurance for cruising holidays.
Fast Cover’s party trick is unlimited cover for both medical emergencies and trip cancellations. Lost luggage cover is quite generous, at $15,000, as is the $50,000 cover for trip-disruption expenses.
Choice of coverage options is even more flexible than Zoom’s. You get specialist ski travel and cruise options, as well as an option to buy your travel insurance from overseas.
If that wasn’t enough customisation, you can buy add-on packs that cover you for specific activities:
- Motorcycle pack
- Adventure pack
- Bicycle pack
| Assessment Criteria | Score |
|---|---|
| Cost Of Cover | 3 |
| Ease Of Claim | 4 |
| Ease Of Signup | 4 |
4. World2Cover.
Best for sighteeing in Europe and the USA.
Compared with other travel insurance providers, World2Cover offers a $10,000,000 legal liability cover – the highest of any other provider.
Like Fast Cover, World2Cover offers unlimited coverage for medical, cancellation and emergency expenses.
What worries me most is that the feedback they receive online is appalling.
I get that online reviews always tend to skew negative (happy customers are less likely to leave reviews, as they have better things to do), but World2Cover’s reputation is in a class of its own.
My point of view on it is as follows. A lot of the negativity is due to World2Cover’s particularly bureaucratic claims process – not (what can seem like) greedy intent to deny people their cover.
Unfortunately, it means a lot of people have their claims mistakenly denied, and have to go back-and-forth with the company to resolve the issue.
| Assessment Criteria | Score |
|---|---|
| Cost Of Cover | 3 |
| Ease Of Claim | 3 |
| Ease Of Signup | 3 |
4. Butter Insurance.
Good cheap-and-cheerful travel insurer.
Good news – if you’re prone to medical accidents, Butter Insurance provides unlimited emergency medical and hospital coverage.
Bad news – luggage and personal effects coverage is capped at only $10,000. Which, if you travel with a high-end laptop and a few expensive pieces of clothing, you’ll exceed quickly.
Think of it as bare-bones essentials travel insurance. They were cheaper than Zoom and AllClear ($290 average quote). However, their insurance doesn’t include many types of cover that I’d consider essential – such as monkey bites in Thailand and broken bones in Bali.
| Assessment Criteria | Score |
|---|---|
| Cost Of Cover | 3 |
| Ease Of Claim | 4 |
| Ease Of Signup | 4 |
5. Covermore.
Good all-round travel insurer.
Covermore had a few rough years, with customer feedback falling steeply. In fact, there are currently 69 reviews of it on Google, with an average rating of 1.8 stars. Compared with the others, that’s abysmal.
This puts it into the same category as World2Cover. You can expect poor communication that looks like unanswered emails and promises of callbacks that never happen.
This is a shame, because Covermore’s quote was very competitive ($370) compared with Allclear and Zoom. But I’d hesitate recommending them until they sort out the claims process.
Nonetheless, it’s quite popular – and appears to be bundled with some of CBA’s travel products.
| Assessment Criteria | Score |
|---|---|
| Cost Of Cover | 3 |
| Ease Of Claim | 3 |
| Ease Of Signup | 4 |
7. Insure&Go.
Good all-round travel insurer.
Insure&Go is one of the cheapest travel insurance providers in this review.
My wife has used them twice when we visited Bali, and found their prices unbelievably cheap. I verified this by getting a quote for a 1-month holiday in Europe, and it came in at $380. Out-bloody-standing. This makes it 20% cheaper than World2Cover and 15% cheaper than Zoom Insurance.
What I don’t love is that they don’t cover you for pre-existing conditions.
This makes Insure&Go great for younger folks – if you’re older than 40 years of age, I recommend you go with AllClear instead.
| Assessment Criteria | Score |
|---|---|
| Cost Of Cover | 2 |
| Ease Of Claim | 2 |
| Ease Of Signup | 5 |
Why Do You Need Travel Insurance?
I watched an SBS News special recently that revealed Australians are a pretty risk-averse bunch – 86% of Aussie travellers have travel insurance cover when venturing abroad.
However, the remaining 14% expose themselves to significant levels of risk by travelling uninsured, and are most likely to be:
- Migrants (23%).
- Young people aged under 30 (23%).
Andrew Hall, the Chief Executive Officer of Insurance Council of Australia, had a stark warning to those doubting the value of travel insurance:
That puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?
Do You Need Travel Insurance To Go Skiing?
Short answer – hell yes. Especially if you go off-piste.
Irene and I love anything related to the mountains (whether it’s driving, hiking, or skiing) – especially in Europe.
If you’re the same, remember that medical help in the mountains can be absurdly expensive – especially if you need an air ambulance.
What If You Need An Air Rescue When Skiing Overseas?
With a few minor exceptions (that you shouldn’t count on), you’re 100% liable for the cost of a helicopter rescue in overseas skiing destinations like Austria, Germany, Italy and France.
Above: Irene and I skiing in Saalbach, Austria a couple of seasons ago.
If one plucks you from the side of a mountain, you’ll pay about £100 (AU$165) for every minute the helicopter is in the air – this includes the time it spends getting to you.
A short hop to the local medical centre will take about 30 minutes (15 to get to you, and 15 to return) – that’s £3,000 (AU$4,950).
The worst case scenario is one where your injury is too severe to be treated at the local clinic, or the weather is too severe for the chopper to land there.
You’ll end up flying to a regional hub like Sallanches in France or Innsbruck in Austria, which will cost about £10,000 (AU$16,500).
Important!
Emergency medical evacuation from the mountain is not the same as search and rescue. The former is almost always covered by travel insurance. The latter almost never is.
What If You Need An Air Rescue When Skiing In Australia?
Ski emergencies in Australia can be even more expensive, with Victoria’s air ambulance being the priciest of them all.
If you break a leg skiing in Mt Hotham and require an airlift to Melbourne, you will pay just over $13,175 for the privilege.
New South Wales is dirt cheap in comparison – the state’s ambulance service charges a combination of flagfall and per-kilometre rate, which is capped at $7,299 – regardless if they send you by road or by air.
So yeah. Even a “simple” rescue can cost more than your whole ski trip.
Does Your Travel Insurance Policy Cover Air Rescue?
This one is worth double-checking.
And no – you don’t need to read 40 pages of fine print. Scan the PDS for the following (the phrasing may vary):
- Emergency Medical Coverage Limit: Heli rescue is usually taken from your emergency medical pot. Make sure it’s high enough to cover your adventure. As I just showed, even a mild trip near the ski resort can result in an eye-watering bill.
- Helicopter Specific Excesses And Sub-Limits: Some policies have heli-specific caps and excesses – even when the medical limit is high.
Most travel insurers give you the option of adding a skiing-specific add-on to your policy.
But these “ski packs” or “winter sports” add-ons are NOT primarily a rescue benefit. Instead, it’s a set of ski-specific benefits layered on top of your basic policy. For example:
- Your resort is closed due to avalanche disruption or lack of snow, and you want to recover the cost of unused lift passes.
- You break or lose rented ski equipment. (My current obsession for carving is the Stockli Laser WRT – what’s yours? Let me know in the comments. They’re super fun, but cost about $2,500 to replace).
Zoom Insurance is the outlier here, which is why I like it the most. It goes further than paying for damaged skis and unused ski passes – it’s a legitimate snow-sports medical assistance and expense cover.
Above: Irene overlooking Stelvio Pass in Italy – one of the best driving roads in the world. Although I think Grimsel and Susten Passes in Switzerland are better.
Do I Need Travel Insurance To Go On A Cruise?
OK, let me be 100% honest here – I’m not a fan of cruising. Not yet, anyway.
I’m 45 years of age, and still in the “hotel + adventure travel” stage of my life. The idea of being on a boat with a few thousand people just doesn’t appeal as much as driving through mountain passes of Europe with my family.
Sometimes you just want to switch off – while an army of waiters and entertainers take care of every single one of your needs.
So while I don’t have first-hand experience with cruising, I did my best to understand the risks – and ways travel insurance can solve them. Here are the top three that I found:
- Stormy seas are common. They can cause trips and falls, especially in older people. If you break a bone, you will need to be evacuated to a reputable hospital.
- Unexpected life events happen. If you find out that a family member passed away as your ship is docking in Singapore, you will want your travel insurance to cover the cost of your immediate flight home.
- Cruise ships are the perfect breeding ground for respiratory viruses and stomach bugs. If your case is severe, you may need to be evacuated from your cruise ship with a helicopter. Everything I described in the heli evac section above applies here, too. Except that distances may be even greater, and your costs far higher.
Important!
Even if cruising in Austrian domestic waters, the ship’s doctors may not be part of an Australian medical system, so you may not be able to claim their costs via Medicare or private health insurance.
Do I Need Travel Insurance To Go On A Domestic Cruise?
Yes. Because emergency expenses you incur on a ship are likely not covered by Medicare.
A doctor working on a cruise is unlikely to have an Australian Medicare provider number. His license is likely registered in Italy or Greece, and his name is likely Antonio.
This is why it’s important to be covered by an international travel insurance policy – even if sailing in Australian waters. Or a domestic insurance policy with a specific cruising add-on.
How I Compared The Travel Insurance Providers.
The biggest problem with choosing travel insurance is that they all appear the same. Nearly all provide the same combinations of single-trip or multiple-trip cover, with optional bolt-ons for specialty trips. Such as:
- Ski trips (on and off-piste).
- Golf trips (with lost golf club replacement).
- Cruise trips.
Moreover, each provider allows you to dial in the amount of cover you want, depending on your budget.
For example, AllClear gives you three levels, with the main difference being the top amount of cover you get for things like luggage loss.
To make like-for-like cost comparison between different providers meaningful, I requested quotes from providers for five types of trip, common in Australia:
- I Need A Vino: Sydney to Perth flight, 1-week stay at a winery.
- Bogan Express: Sydney to Bali, 2-week stay at a villa.
- Annual Family Pilgrimage: Sydney to Rome, 4-week hotel stay.
- European Ski Nut: Melbourne to Switzerland, 4 week hotel stay.
- Ski Trip With The Boyz: Sydney to Mt Hotham, 1 week cabin stay.
I then added up the costs to arrive at an average figure for each travel insurance provider.
I also assessed two main other areas: ease of claims and ease of signup.
Does A Reciprocal Health Care Agreement (RHCA) Substitute Travel Insurance?
11 countries have reciprocal agreements with Australia that act as a shared safety net for the cost of medical treatment.
I didn’t even know these agreements existed – until I ended up in a Milan hospital after slipping in a hotel bathroom.
To my amazement, they simply asked for my Australian Medicare card, and told me that payment was taken care of.
Important!
The RHCA is not a replacement for travel insurance, as it doesn’t cover you for any consequences of your injury – e.g., adjustments to travel plans.
The RHCA doesn’t cover anything outside of immediate emergency treatment in the public system, either – so you will be out of pocket for expenses like an ambulance.
Also, some countries are more stingy than others – and will expect you to co-contribute to your bill. For example, Belgium will expect you to pay between 25% and 40% of a GP’s fee.
Limits Of Travel Insurance You Need To Know About.
OK, this is something I discovered the hard way. If your airline screws up (e.g., a delayed flight causes you to miss a connection, or a cancelled flight means you miss a Taylor Swift concert), your travel insurer won’t help.
But ultimately, in Australia, airlines are responsible for any issues that arise as a result of their operations. It is their responsibility to offer you a replacement flight and, if applicable, accommodation.
This seems reasonable, except that noone appears to be liable for the losses you incur (e.g., whose responsiblity is it to reimburse you for that missed concert ticket?) Yours, it seems.
Enjoy your travels!
Steven
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