Kayak Travel Insurance - 2024 Review

Kayak is one of the premier online travel agencies that has an amazing metasearch engine to find travel deals for air travel, package travel, hotels and rental cars.

Saving money on flights with a comparison site like Kayak is something many of us do. At checkout, you’ll be offered travel insurance to cover your trip. But is it worth it?

Before selecting it, our suggestion is to shop around, like you did with your flights, to find the best trip insurance plan for your needs at the lowest possible price.

Our Sample Package With Flight and Hotel Together

Let’s look at a sample trip. This is a flight from JFK to London on February 12 – February 17 for two travelers from New Jersey aged 60 and 62.

Since we want a flight plus hotel for our trip, we need to look at package deals. This takes us to edreams.com (a Spanish travel booking agent) to select a hotel that will include flights. We selected the Park Grand London Kensington at $856 per traveler for the hotel and flight.

No insurance is offered through edreams except for cancel for any reason which they call C4AR.

This Cancel For Any Reason insurance is $39.07 per traveler for each flight segment, so with a round trip flight with one stop each way (4 segments total), we’re looking at $156.28.

The specifics of the policy are below:

Edreams will refund 80% of your hotel and flight cost if you cancel 72 hours prior to departure. Also, if the booking includes a roundtrip flight, even though you are charged for each segment as stated above, the CFAR option can only be used before departure of the first flight. In other words, though you are charged for each segment to include the CFAR option, it is only available for the FIRST segment departure.

Maximum refund is 5,000 Euros (approx. $5,367 USD at current rates) per traveler to a maximum of $45,000 euros ($48,303 USD at current rates) per trip. Anything beyond these amounts will not be covered by the CFAR policy.

Total cost for our package trip is $1,810.85:

Before deciding whether we should include the CFAR option, let’s see what’s available in the open marketplace for travel insurance and why it is a much better option overall.

TravelDefenders – The Travel Insurance Marketplace

TravelDefenders is a travel insurance marketplace, we can quote your trip with leading US travel insurance providers and display them in an easy to compare format.

Inputting our trip details into TravelDefenders’s quote system, we are shown 27 options for travel insurance. Since we are traveling to the UK, TravelDefenders recommends carrying a minimum of $100,000 of medical coverage and $250,000 of medical evacuation coverage as well as a waiver for pre-existing medical conditions if needed.

The least expensive policy that provides adequate coverage is the IMG Travel SE for $135.36.

The policy provides $250,000 of medical coverage and $500,000 of medical evacuation coverage as well as coverage for any pre-existing medical condition if the policy is purchased within 20 days of the initial trip payment or deposit date.

Should we want maximum cancellation flexibility in case we decide we simply don’t want to go, we’ll need to look at a different policy – a Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) policy.

Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) Policies

As mentioned above, a Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) policy will provide maximum cancellation flexibility. If we cancel for a listed reason in the policy, such as illness or injury preventing us from traveling, we’ll receive a 100% refund of our trip costs. However, if we cancel for any other non-listed reason, we’ll receive either 50% or 75% of our trip cost back, depending on the policy chosen.

The least expensive CFAR policy for our package trip is the Travel Insured Worldwide Trip Protector (CFAR 75%) for $213.12.

The policy provides $100,000 of medical coverage and $1 million of medical evacuation coverage and will also provide a waiver to cover any pre-existing medical conditions if the policy is purchased within 21 days of the initial trip payment or deposit.

Should we cancel for a listed reason in the policy, such as illness or injury preventing us from traveling, we’ll receive a 100% refund of our trip costs. If we cancel for any other non-listed reason, we’ll receive 75% of our trip cost refunded. We would need to cancel up to 48 prior to travel (instead of the 72 that edreams requires) and can receive up to 75% of the total trip cost and not just a maximum of 5,000 Euros per traveler as with edreams.

While more expensive than the IMG policy, if we need more flexibility to cancel, the Travel Insured policy would be a good choice.

What if we don’t want to book a package but just a flight through Kayak. What options, if any, would we have for flight insurance in this instance? Let’s see…

Our Sample Flight Only Trip

For our sample flight-only trip, we chose the same trip from JFK to London, Heathrow on February 12 – February 17 for two travelers aged 60 and 62 but this time we’re only looking a flights and not a package deal.

We chose a Delta roundtrip flight and with taxes and fees, the total cost came to $1,119.50.

At checkout, we’re asked if we’d like to insure our flight for $43.38 per traveler for a total of $86.76.

The policy is the Global Traveler Protector II by Allianz, a well-respected travel insurer. The policy provides $50,000 of medical coverage and $50,000 of medical evacuation coverage.

Does this policy provide enough coverage for our UK trip? Not really. Since we’re traveling outside the US, TravelDefenders recommends having a minimum of $100,000 of medical coverage and $250,000 of medical evacuation coverage.

Unless we have US healthcare that fully covers us worldwide, (most do not), the AIG policy only provides $50,000 of medical coverage - half of what we would need at a minimum.

Medical evacuation can be even costlier. If we need to be flown home due to a severe medical emergency, the cost can be upwards of $25,000 per flight hour. With the AIG policy we’d be covered for only 2 hours of flight time and the remaining costs would come out of our own pocket. Not a pretty thought!

Can we find something better in the open marketplace through TravelDefenders? Let’s find out.

TravelDefenders – Insurance In The Open Marketplace

If we run input our trip details in TravelDefenders’s quoting system, we have 27 plan options to choose from. The least expensive plan with the minimum recommended coverage is the Trawick Voyager for $101.76.

The policy provides $250,000 of medical coverage and $1 million of medical evacuation coverage. So, for $15 more than the Kayak flight insurance provided by Allianz, we can have 5x the medical coverage and 20x the medical evacuation coverage. Also, should we need to, we can cover any prepaid, non-refundable trip costs in addition to the airfare, while the Kayak policy will ONLY cover airfare.

Should we want maximum cancellation flexibility in case we decide we simply don’t want to go, we’ll need to look at a different policy – a Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) policy.

Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) Policies

As mentioned above, a Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) policy will provide maximum cancellation flexibility. If we cancel for a listed reason in the policy, such as illness or injury preventing us from traveling, we’ll receive a 100% refund of our trip costs. However, if we cancel for any other non-listed reason, we’ll receive either 50% or 75% of our trip cost back, depending on the policy chosen.

The least expensive CFAR policy on our quote from TravelDefenders with a 75% refund is the Trawick Voyager (CFAR 75%) for $172.98.

The policy has the same benefits as the standard Trawick Voyager policy we looked at previously but adds the cancel for any reason benefit if we purchase the policy within 21 days of our initial trip payment or deposit. Though more expensive than the standard Voyager plan, if we need maximum cancellation flexibility then this policy would be a great option.

Conclusion

Before you book your flight on Kayak and buy their trip insurance, shop around and find the right travel policy for your needs.

And if you want to save even more money on your flights, try the TravelDefenders Flight Hack. We have a whole article on this great travel tip, but in essence the advice is to never buy a refundable ticket again. Buy a non-refundable ticket and a cancel for any reason travel insurance policy to save you hundreds of dollars.

To get the best value for your money, visit TravelDefenders first to shop around before committing to the first travel insurance policy you find. Please stop by and chat, send an email, or give us a call at 650-492-6298.

Safe travels!