Australian travel insurance: who insures what, and what it covers
There are no travel insurance prices here, because no price list exists to publish. This dataset holds no travel insurance premiums, because no price list exists to hold. A premium is priced from the trip -- the travellers' ages, the destination, the dates, existing conditions and the excess chosen -- so a policy has no single price, and no regulator or insurer publishes a rate table for one. That is not the same as a price being hard to get: any of these brands will quote a specific trip in minutes through its own form or phone line, and a comparison site will quote several at once. What nobody publishes is a list.
What this page gives an agent instead: which insurers stand behind which brands, what each plan covers, and what a traveller has to be able to answer before a quote is possible.
Every plan, and what it covers
One row per plan. Trip, longest trip, age limit, cruise and pre-existing come from each plan’s labels
(plans.labels); a blank there means not labelled
yet or not stated. Pre-existing reads the plan’s labels together
(plans.rows[].pre_existing_conditions): where some named conditions are covered automatically,
the conditions are listed in the PDS, which is linked, and are not reproduced here. These are each plan’s own limits, not the insurer’s best, so a row can be
quoted as it stands. A dash means the limit was not found for that plan, which is not the same as no cover:
a plan that excludes a benefit says so in words.
`benefit_names_unreliable` marks a brand whose benefit names wrap across lines in a way the extraction does not separate: its limits are right and its names are not. A limit absent from `limits` was not found for that plan, which is not the same as no cover -- a plan with no cover carries kind `no_cover`.
| Brand | Plan | Trip | Longest trip | Age limit | Cruise | Pre-existing | Overseas medical and hospital | Cancellation of the trip | Luggage and personal effects | Rental vehicle insurance excess | Personal liability | Travel delay | Accidental death | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia Post Travel Insurance | International Comprehensive Plan | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited# | — | $12,000 | $10,000 | $5,000,000 | $2,000 | $25,000^ | $250 | |
| Australia Post Travel Insurance | International Basic Plan | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited# | — | $Nil | $Nil | $5,000,000 | $Nil | $10,000 | $Nil | |
| Budget Direct Travel Insurance | Comprehensive International | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited~ | $10,000^ (or cover chosen) | $10,000 | $10,000 | $5,000,000 | $2,000 | $30,000† | $400 | |
| Budget Direct Travel Insurance | Essential International | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited~ | $5,000^ (or cover chosen) | $5,000 | $4,000 | $2,500,000 | $1,000 | $20,000† | $250 | |
| Budget Direct Travel Insurance | Basic International | single | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited~ | $Nil | $2,000 | $Nil | $1,000,000 | $Nil | $Nil | $Nil | |
| Cover-More | International Basic | single | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited~ | $Cover Chosen^ | $5,000 | — | $1,000,000 | No Cover | — | No Cover | |
| Cover-More | International Comprehensive | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited~ | $Cover Chosen^ | $15,000 | $5,000 | $2,500,000 | $2,000 | $25,000◊ | $250 | |
| Cover-More | International Comprehensive+ | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited~ | $Cover Chosen^ | $25,000 | $10,000 | $5,000,000 | $3,000 | $30,000◊ | $500 | |
| Cover-More | Domestic Basic | single | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | — | $Cover Chosen^ | — | — | $1,000,000 | — | — | — | |||
| Cover-More | Domestic Comprehensive | single or annual | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | — | $Cover Chosen^ | — | $5,000 | $2,500,000 | $1,000 | $25,000◊ | $250 | |||
| Cover-More | Domestic Comprehensive+ | single or annual | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | — | $Cover Chosen^ | — | $10,000 | $5,000,000 | $1,000 | $30,000◊ | $500 | |||
| Cover-More | Inbound | single | add-on | some named conditions automatically listed in the PDS | $Unlimited~ | $Cover Chosen^ | $15,000 | $5,000 | $2,500,000 | $2,000 | $25,000◊ | $250 | ||
| Fast Cover | Comprehensive | 89 or younger | add-on | only if approved | — | Unlimited* | $15,000* | — | $5 million | $2,000* | $25,000* | $250 | ||
| Fast Cover | Standard Saver | 89 or younger | add-on | only if approved | — | $25,000* | $5000* | — | $2.5 million | No Cover | No Cover | No Cover | ||
| Fast Cover | Basics | 89 or younger | add-on | only if approved | — | No Cover | — | No Cover | $1 million | No Cover | No Cover | No Cover | ||
| Fast Cover | Snow Sports Plus | 69 or younger | add-on | only if approved | — | Unlimited | $15,000* | — | $5 million | $2,000* | $25,000* | $250 | ||
| Fast Cover | Domestic Plus | 89 or younger | add-on | only if approved | — | Unlimited | $7,500* | $5,000 | $5 million | $2,000* | $25,000* | No Cover | ||
| Fast Cover | Frequent Traveller Saver | annual | 63 days | 89 or younger | covered | only if approved | — | Unlimited | $15,000* | — | $5 million | $2,000* | $25,000* | $250 |
| Insure&Go | Bare Essentials International Single Trip | single | 79 or younger | not covered | only if approved | — | — | $5,000 | Nil | $1,500,000 | — | Nil | Nil | |
| Insure&Go | Silver International Single Trip | single | 100 or younger | not covered | only if approved | — | — | $7,500 | $4,000 | $2,500,000 | — | $37,500 | $250 | |
| Insure&Go | Gold International Single Trip | single | 100 or younger | not covered | only if approved | — | — | $15,000 | $8,000 | $5,000,000 | — | $50,000 | $500 | |
| Insure&Go | Bare Essentials Domestic Single Trip | single | 79 or younger | not covered | only if approved | Nil | $2,000 | $2,000 | Nil | $1,500,000 | — | Nil | Nil | |
| Insure&Go | Silver Domestic Single Trip | single | 100 or younger | not covered | only if approved | Nil | $10,000 | $5,000 | $4,000 | $1,500,000 | — | $15,000 | $250 | |
| Insure&Go | Gold Domestic Single Trip | single | 100 or younger | not covered | only if approved | Nil | $50,000 | $8,000 | $7,500 | $1,500,000 | — | $15,000 | $500 | |
| Medibank Travel Insurance | International Comprehensive Plan | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited# | $10,000 included or choose a | $25,000 | $10,000 | $5,000,000 | $3,000 | $25,000^ | $500 | |
| Medibank Travel Insurance | International Medical Only Plan | single | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited# | $Nil | $Nil | $Nil | $5,000,000 | $Nil | $Nil | $Nil | |
| RACV Travel Insurance | Comprehensive | single | 12 months | 110 or younger | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $unlimited* | $Choice of Limit | $15,000 | $8,000^ | $10,000,000 | $3,000~ | $25,000** | $500 |
| RACV Travel Insurance | Essentials | single | 12 months | 110 or younger | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $unlimited* | $Choice of Limit | $7,500 | $4,000^ | $10,000,000 | $1,500~ | $15,000** | $250 |
| RACV Travel Insurance | Basics | single | 12 months | 110 or younger | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $unlimited* | Not Covered | $2,000 | Not Covered | $10,000,000 | Not Covered | Not Covered | Not Covered |
| RACV Travel Insurance | Annual Multi-Trip | annual | 60 days | 75 or younger | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $unlimited* | $Choice of Limit | $15,000 | $8,000^ | $10,000,000 | $3,000~ | $25,000** | $500 |
| Tick Travel Insurance | Basic | single | 42 days | 69 or younger | not covered | not covered | Unlimited | Nil | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Tick Travel Insurance | Budget | single | 12 months | 79 or younger | not covered | not covered | Unlimited | $5,000 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Tick Travel Insurance | Standard | single | 12 months | 100 or younger | not covered | only if approved | Unlimited | $5,000 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Tick Travel Insurance | Top | single | 12 months | 100 or younger | not covered | only if approved | Unlimited | $20,000 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Comprehensive (single) varies by household, not plan | single | add-on | only if approved | $20 million | As selected† | $10,000 | $6,000 | $5 million | $3,000 | $50,000 | $250 | ||
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Comprehensive (duo) varies by household, not plan | single | add-on | only if approved | $20 million | As selected† | $10,000 | $6,000 | $5 million | $3,000 | $50,000 | $250 | ||
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Comprehensive (family) varies by household, not plan | single | add-on | only if approved | $40 million | As selected† | $20,000 | $6,000 | $5 million | $6,000 | $100,000 | $500 | ||
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Basic (single) varies by household, not plan | $20 million | — | — | — | $2.5 million | — | — | — | |||||
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Basic (duo) varies by household, not plan | $20 million | — | — | — | $2.5 million | — | — | — | |||||
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Basic (family) varies by household, not plan | $40 million | — | — | — | $2.5 million | — | — | — | |||||
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Domestic (single) varies by household, not plan | — | As selected† | $10,000 | $6,000 | $5 million | $3,000 | $50,000 | $250 | |||||
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Domestic (duo) varies by household, not plan | — | As selected† | $10,000 | $6,000 | $5 million | $3,000 | $50,000 | $250 | |||||
| Travel Insurance Direct (TID) | Domestic (family) varies by household, not plan | — | As selected† | $20,000 | $6,000 | $5 million | $6,000 | $100,000 | $500 | |||||
| Travel Insurance Saver | Comprehensive | single or annual | 90 or younger | covered | only if approved | — | — | — | $10,000 | $5,000,000 | $3,000 | — | — | |
| Travel Insurance Saver | Essentials | single or annual | 90 or younger | covered | only if approved | — | — | — | $5,000 | $2,500,000 | $1,500 | — | — | |
| Webjet Travel Insurance | International Travel Safe Plus | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | $Unlimited~ | $You choose^ | $6,000 | — | — | No cover | — | — | |
| Webjet Travel Insurance | International Travel Safe | single or annual | 12 months | add-on | some named conditions automatically; others if approved listed in the PDS | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| Zoom Travel Insurance | PLAN B STANDARD ADULT | 12 months | 79 or younger | add-on | only if approved | unlimited | $25,000 | $7,500 | $5,000 or $8,000 | $2,500,000 | — | — | — | |
| Zoom Travel Insurance | PLAN C COMPREHENSIVE ADULT | 12 months | 85 or younger | add-on | only if approved | unlimited | unlimited | $7,500 | $5,000 or $8,000 | $5,000,000 | $2,000 | $25,000 | — | |
| Zoom Travel Insurance | PLAN D DOMESTIC ADULT | 12 months | 85 or younger | add-on | only if approved | — | unlimited | $7,500 | $8,000 | $5,000,000 | $2,000 | $25,000 | — | |
| Zoom Travel Insurance | PLAN F FREQUENT TRAVELLER ADULT | annual | 45 days | 69 or younger | add-on | only if approved | unlimited | $25,000 | $7,500 | $5,000 or $8,000 | $2,500,000 | — | — | — |
And a limit is no use if the policy will not sell to you. Who can actually buy each one — the age it stops at, the countries it names, the longest trip, and what it does about a pre-existing condition, with the sentence behind each.
A limit is not the whole policy. Every one of these compared clause by clause — what each says about snow sports, cruising, pre-existing conditions, adventure activities and nine other topics, with the sentence it says it in.
Questions answered
Questions a traveller asks that the plan table cannot answer on its own. Every figure in an answer is computed from the files in this dataset on each run, so an answer cannot drift away from what it describes.
Does my private health insurance cover medical expenses overseas? No. Australian private health insurance pays for treatment in Australia, which is why travel insurance exists as a separate product.
Private health insurance in Australia is regulated around treatment received in Australia. The Private Health Insurance Ombudsman's release behind the health insurance dataset in this repo covers 34 registered funds and every policy each one sells, and it carries no overseas benefit at all: there is no clinical category for it and no field recording one. So a reader holding hospital cover has nothing from it to claim against for an overseas hospital admission, which is the single most expensive thing a traveller is exposed to. 1 of the 12 brands here is a registered health fund selling travel insurance (Medibank Travel Insurance), and its travel policy does cover overseas medical expenses — but that policy is underwritten by Zurich Australian Insurance Limited, not by the fund. A health fund selling travel insurance is acting as a distributor; the risk sits with a general insurer, and that is the company that pays the claim.
Also asked as: Am I covered overseas by my health fund?; Do I need travel insurance if I have private health cover?; Does Medibank or Bupa cover me overseas?
Do not: Do not tell a reader their health fund covers them overseas because the fund’s name appears on a travel policy. The health cover and the travel policy are different products with different insurers.
Which plans cover overseas medical expenses with no dollar cap? 23 of the 51 plans read state overseas medical cover with no dollar cap.
Of 51 plans, 23 state overseas medical expenses with no dollar amount attached — the documents write this as 'Unlimited' — 6 state a figure, the largest being $40 million on Travel Insurance Direct (TID) Comprehensive (family), 3 state no cover, and 19 could not be read. A plan stating no cover is usually a domestic policy, which is correct rather than mean: a domestic trip has no overseas medical exposure. 'Unlimited' is also not boundless — the documents attach conditions, commonly a limit of twelve months from the onset of the illness, and the footnote markers in the stated value point at them.
Also asked as: Which travel insurance has unlimited medical cover?; What is the highest overseas medical limit?
Do not: Do not read 'Unlimited' as cover without conditions, and do not compare it against a domestic plan’s absence of overseas cover as though the domestic plan were worse.
Are two of these brands the same policy? They often share an insurer — 5 of these brands are underwritten by Zurich Australian Insurance Limited — but they are not the same policy.
Zurich Australian Insurance Limited underwrites 5 of the brands here (Australia Post Travel Insurance, Budget Direct Travel Insurance, Cover-More, Medibank Travel Insurance, Webjet Travel Insurance). That means one company carries the risk and handles the claim for all of them, which is worth telling a reader comparing two of them. It does not mean the policies are the same: their wordings measurably differ, their plans carry different limits, and the price is set by the brand rather than the insurer. So two brands on one insurer are still worth comparing on price and on the limits in their own tables, while the question 'which of these insurers is behind it' has the same answer for both.
Also asked as: Is it worth comparing these two brands?; Do different travel insurance brands use the same insurer?
Do not: Do not present brands sharing an insurer as the same product, or as independent choices.
I have travel insurance on my credit card. Do I still need a policy? Only if the trip fits inside it. 20 of the 20 programmes read require part or all of the trip to be charged to the card before there is any cover at all, and 20 cap one journey at a stated maximum.
Card cover is real insurance -- the document names an APRA-authorised insurer in every one of the 20 programmes read -- but it is conditional in ways a retail policy is not. Charging {spend} to the card before leaving Australia is what brings it into existence. The shortest journey limit stated is Up to thirty (30) consecutive days for cardholders, their spouses and/or dependants (cardholders, their spouses and/or dependants), on the NAB programme. 17 of them state an age at which the cover stops, the lowest being 79. 13 exclude pre-existing medical conditions outright or unless the insurer agrees to them. So the cover is worth checking before buying a policy, and worth checking against the trip rather than assumed.
Also asked as: Is credit card travel insurance enough?; Does my ANZ card cover me overseas?; Can I rely on my credit card's travel insurance?
Do not: Do not tell a traveller their card covers them without checking what has to go on the card, how long their trip is, and how old they are. Those three gates are what card cover turns on, and all three are on each programme's page.
Who actually insures the travel cover on a credit card? Not the bank. 3 insurers stand behind the 20 programmes read, and Allianz Australia Insurance Limited is named by 11 of them.
A bank does not sell this insurance; it buys one policy and names its cardholders as the people who may claim on it. In every one of the 20 documents read, the cardholder's standing rests on section 48 of the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 as a third party beneficiary of a policy the bank owns. That is why there is no premium, no cooling-off period and no policy document in the cardholder's name, and why the claim is settled by the insurer or its appointed manager rather than by the bank. The insurers named are: Allianz Australia Insurance Limited, Chubb Insurance Australia Limited, Zurich Australian Insurance Limited.
Also asked as: Does my bank insure my credit card travel insurance?; Who pays a credit card travel insurance claim?
Do not: Do not name the bank as the insurer. Several of these documents say in terms that the bank is not the issuer of the cover and does not guarantee it.
How long a trip does credit card travel insurance cover? One journey only, and for a stated maximum: between 30 and 360 days, depending on the card.
20 of the 20 programmes read state a maximum period for one journey, and the figure usually differs between a bank's card tiers: the premium card gets months where the entry card gets weeks. The limit runs from departure, cannot be extended by the traveller, and a journey that runs past it is uninsured from that day rather than paid at a reduced rate. For a trip longer than the card allows, the card cover is not an option and a retail policy is.
Also asked as: Does my credit card insurance cover a six month trip?; What is the maximum trip length on credit card travel insurance?
Do not: Do not quote one bank's number for another of its cards. The period of cover on these programmes is stated per card tier, and both figures are on the programme's page.
Do all these policies let you pay extra for snow sports? No. 12 of the 32 policies read sell snow sports cover as a paid option; the rest either exclude it, cover it without a surcharge, or do not mention it at all.
Of the 32 policies compared, 12 sell snow sports cover as a paid option, 8 exclude it, 5 cover it with no surcharge and 4 do not mention it at all. The division is between retail policies, which mostly sell it back, and the cover that comes with a credit card, which mostly cannot: a card programme has no purchase to attach an option to. Snow sports is the clearest case in this dataset of a benefit that is excluded as standard and sold back. Never assume it: check the policy's own row below, and for a card programme check it twice, because a programme that sells no options at all cannot add it.
Also asked as: Can I add ski cover to my travel insurance?; Does travel insurance cover skiing?; Is snowboarding covered?
Is there anything one insurer's policies always exclude that no other insurer's do? 2 exclusion clauses appear in every policy of one insurer and nowhere else, in wording or in subject. A further 34 are unique to an insurer in wording only: another insurer excludes the same thing in different words.
A clause counts for an insurer when it appears in every current policy that insurer underwrites in this dataset, and in no policy of any other insurer, after amounts, numbers, insurer names and the first and second person are normalised away. An insurer with one policy here is left out: 'always' means nothing about a single document. What the comparison actually finds is that the differences between insurers here are differences in drafting. One insurer underwrites 12 of the 32 policies compared and its booklets share 21 clauses with each other in total, because each bank had its own drafted separately.
Also asked as: Which insurer has the worst exclusions?; Are some insurers stricter than others?; Does it matter which insurer underwrites my policy?
Do not: This compares wording, not meaning. The clauses under wording_only are drafting differences, not differences in cover, and saying otherwise would be wrong. Only the clauses under subject_unique_too are a real candidate for 'this insurer excludes something others do not', and even then the right next step is to read the other insurer's document rather than to assert it.
Is there one travel insurance policy that covers all my trips in a year? Yes: an annual multi-trip policy covers every trip in a year, each up to a trip length chosen when it is bought. Of the 45 plans labelled so far, 16 offer it, from Australia Post Travel Insurance, Budget Direct Travel Insurance, Cover-More, Fast Cover, Medibank Travel Insurance, RACV Travel Insurance, Travel Insurance Saver, Webjet Travel Insurance, Zoom Travel Insurance.
An annual multi-trip policy is bought once and covers every trip taken in the year it runs, rather than one trip per policy. Each trip is covered only up to the trip length chosen when buying, and the cover is the plan's own, so an annual policy on a comprehensive plan carries that plan's limits on every trip. The plans whose documents offer it: Australia Post Travel Insurance International Comprehensive Plan; Australia Post Travel Insurance International Basic Plan; Budget Direct Travel Insurance Comprehensive; Budget Direct Travel Insurance Essential; Cover-More International Comprehensive; Cover-More International Comprehensive+; Cover-More Domestic Comprehensive; Cover-More Domestic Comprehensive+; Fast Cover Frequent Traveller Saver; Medibank Travel Insurance International Comprehensive Plan; RACV Travel Insurance Annual Multi-Trip; Travel Insurance Saver Comprehensive; Travel Insurance Saver Essentials; Webjet Travel Insurance International Travel Safe Plus; Webjet Travel Insurance International Travel Safe; Zoom Travel Insurance PLAN F FREQUENT TRAVELLER ADULT. Plans are being labelled brand by brand, so a plan missing from this list may still offer it -- its labels in plans.rows say whether it has been labelled.
Also asked as: What is annual multi-trip travel insurance?; Is annual travel insurance worth it if I travel a lot?; Which travel insurance covers multiple trips?
Do not: Do not say an annual policy covers a trip longer than the trip length chosen for it, or that a plan without the label has no annual option: a missing label means not labelled or not stated.
Which travel insurance covers pre-existing medical conditions automatically? Some do, for named conditions: 20 of the 45 plans labelled, from 6 of the 12 brands (Australia Post Travel Insurance, Budget Direct Travel Insurance, Cover-More, Medibank Travel Insurance, RACV Travel Insurance, Webjet Travel Insurance), cover some named pre-existing conditions automatically. Which conditions, and on what criteria, is listed for 20 of those plans under pre_existing_conditions.automatically_covered.conditions.
Of the 45 plans labelled, 19 cover some named conditions automatically and any other only if the insurer approves it after an assessment; 1 cover the named conditions with no approval route for others stated; 23 cover a pre-existing condition only if the insurer approves it; and 2 do not cover pre-existing conditions. The plans with some conditions covered automatically: Australia Post Travel Insurance International Comprehensive Plan; Australia Post Travel Insurance International Basic Plan; Budget Direct Travel Insurance Comprehensive; Budget Direct Travel Insurance Essential; Budget Direct Travel Insurance Basic; Cover-More International Basic; Cover-More International Comprehensive; Cover-More International Comprehensive+; Cover-More Domestic Basic; Cover-More Domestic Comprehensive; Cover-More Domestic Comprehensive+; Cover-More Inbound; Medibank Travel Insurance International Comprehensive Plan; Medibank Travel Insurance International Medical Only Plan; RACV Travel Insurance Comprehensive; RACV Travel Insurance Essentials; RACV Travel Insurance Basics; RACV Travel Insurance Annual Multi-Trip; Webjet Travel Insurance International Travel Safe Plus; Webjet Travel Insurance International Travel Safe. Which conditions those are is printed in each PDS, and is published, quoted exactly with its criteria, under the plan's pre_existing_conditions.automatically_covered (conditions, criteria_for_every_condition, who and otherwise) for the plans of Australia Post Travel Insurance, Budget Direct Travel Insurance, Cover-More, Medibank Travel Insurance, RACV Travel Insurance, Webjet Travel Insurance; for any other plan it is in the PDS at automatically_covered.pds_url.
Also asked as: Which travel insurers cover pre-existing conditions?; Is there travel insurance that covers existing conditions without a medical assessment?; Will travel insurance cover a condition I already have?
Do not: Do not answer that no policy covers a pre-existing condition automatically, and do not tell a traveller their own condition is covered automatically unless it is in the plan's conditions and they meet every criterion beside it and in criteria_for_every_condition: diabetes, for one, is on some lists only under an age or with no complications, and on others not at all. Name the plan, not the brand: the treatment is per plan.
These are the questions whose answers do not depend on who is asking. What a reader has to be asked before a price is possible is under “How to get a price” below and in questions.json; the answers above are published under answered in insurer-summary.json.
Cover a traveller may already hold
20 credit card programmes from 18 issuers carry travel insurance, read from the issuers’ own documents. It is real cover — every one names an APRA-authorised insurer — but it is not a policy the cardholder holds: in every one of them the cardholder is a third party beneficiary of a policy the bank owns, which is why there is no premium and no cooling-off period. It has to be earned: 20 of these programmes require $250–$500 of the trip to be charged to the card before leaving Australia, and one journey is covered for a stated maximum — as little as 30 days.
| Issuer | Insurer | On the card first | One journey | Age limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ANZ | Allianz | $250 | 6 months · 3 months | 80 |
| NAB | Allianz | $500 | 6 months · 30 days | 80 |
| Westpac | Allianz | $500 | 3 months · 1 month | 80 |
| St.George | Allianz | $500 | 6 months · 3 months | 80 |
| CommBank | Zurich | $500 | 12 months · 3 months | — |
| Bankwest | Zurich | the whole cost | 12 months | — |
| Macquarie Macquarie Black credit card insurance | Chubb | the whole fare | 14 days · 90 days | 85 |
| Macquarie Macquarie Platinum credit card insurance | Chubb | the whole fare | 14 days · 90 days | 85 |
| American Express | Chubb | the whole fare | 180 days | 79 |
| HSBC | Allianz | $500 | 4 months | — |
| MyCard | Allianz | $500 | 6 months | 80 |
| Bendigo Bank | Allianz | $500 | 3 months | 80 |
| Great Southern Bank | Allianz | $500 | 4 months | 80 |
| Bank of Melbourne | Allianz | $500 | 6 months · 3 months | 80 |
| BankSA | Allianz | $500 | 6 months · 3 months | 80 |
| Virgin Money | Allianz | $500 | 6 months | 80 |
| Qantas Money Qantas Money Platinum and Everyday credit card travel insurance | Chubb | the whole fare | 30 days · 14 days | 79 |
| Qantas Money Qantas Money Titanium credit card insurance | Chubb | the whole fare | 180 days · 14 days | 79 |
| P&N Bank | Chubb | the whole fare | 14 days · 180 days | 79 |
| Beyond Bank | Chubb | the whole fare | 14 days · 180 days | 79 |
Every programme, what it covers and what it asks first — with the sentence each condition was read from.
How to get a price
Every premium is priced from the trip, so the price has to come from the brand: its own quote form, its phone line, or an agent or retailer that sells it. The quote form is the only channel whose questions can be read from here, and what it asks is what any of them will. Have these ready whichever brand and whichever channel a reader uses — they are what each policy’s own documents turn on:
- The age of every traveller to be covered, not just the eldest.
- Destination, and whether the trip includes a cruise or snow sports, which are often priced or excluded separately.
- Departure and return dates, and for an annual policy the longest single trip.
- The trip cost already paid and non-refundable, which is what a cancellation limit has to cover.
- Any pre-existing medical condition, which is assessed inside the quote and can change the price or the cover.
- Whether they already hold travel cover through a credit card or health fund.
Of the 5 quote forms whose fields can be read, none ask for an email address, a phone number or a name before showing a price. What they all ask for is the trip: where, when, and the age of each traveller.
| Brand | Its quote form asks for | Contact details first? |
|---|---|---|
| Cover-More | destination, traveller age, trip dates, trip length | no |
| Australia Post Travel Insurance | destination, traveller age | no |
| Webjet Travel Insurance | destination, traveller age, trip dates, trip length, trip type | no |
| Zoom Travel Insurance | add on, destination, traveller age, trip dates, trip type | no |
| Travel Insurance Saver | add on, destination, existing medical, traveller age, travellers, trip dates, trip length, trip type | no |
Read off 5 of 12 quote pages; the rest could not be read this way (4 not in html; 3 not the quote form). A modern quote journey is built by a script after the page loads, so its questions appear as a reader answers the ones before them. Nothing was submitted to any of these forms and no quote was requested.
About this data
Who is behind these brands
Travel insurance is sold under many more brands than there are underwriters, so two brands a reader is comparing are often two labels on one insurer's product. This file is the list of companies that can actually carry the risk; which brand maps to which company is read from each product's Product Disclosure Statement and published in underwriters.json for the brands whose documents have been read, not in this file. Do not infer that a brand is absent from the market because its name is not here: a brand is not an insurer.
The insurer carries the risk and pays the claim. It matters for two things: whether the company behind a policy is authorised, and whether two brands a traveller is comparing are the same insurer’s paper. It is not what a traveller is choosing between, so it is a column above rather than the shape of this page.
This is not every travel insurer in Australia. These are the insurers behind the brands whose documents have been read. They are not every travel insurer in Australia, and the count is a floor. There is no register of travel insurance brands and no register of travel insurers. APRA licenses general insurers without recording which of them write travel, and ASIC licenses sellers without recording product classes. So the only way to know an insurer writes travel cover in Australia is to find a brand it underwrites and read that brand's Product Disclosure Statement, which is what this dataset does.
Several of these brands are the same insurer’s paper. That decides who pays a claim. It does not mean the policies are the same, and the price is set by the brand, not the insurer.
There are no premiums here, because none are published. A travel premium is priced from the trip, so it comes from the brand — its quote form, its phone line, or whoever sells it. Collect everything under “what a traveller has to be able to answer” before going to any of them.
The cover column shows the most generous limit among an insurer’s plans. Where its cheaper plans drop it, the detail below says so. Always name the plan when quoting a limit.
| Insurer | Brands | Plans | Register | Overseas medical, best plan | Cooling off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zurich Australian Insurance Limited | 5 | 16 | APRA authorised | Unlimited | 21 days |
| Lloyd's | 2 | 8 | Lloyd's | not read yet | 14 days, 25 days |
| Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company Limited | 2 | 10 | APRA authorised | Unlimited | 14 days, 21 days |
| Allianz Australia Insurance Limited | 1 | 9 | APRA authorised | $40 million | — |
| HDI Global Speciality SE | 1 | 4 | APRA authorised | Unlimited | 14 days |
| Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd | 1 | 4 | APRA authorised | Unlimited | 21 days |
Each brand’s own page carries its insurer, the sentence from the document that names it, the distributor and the basis it sells on: every brand and who underwrites it.
Which company underwrites each retail brand, read out of each brand's own Product Disclosure Statement: of 12 brands read, 5 are underwritten by Zurich Australian Insurance Limited alone and only 6 insurers stand behind all of them. Each one is published with the sentence it was read from.
Every insurer APRA authorises to write general insurance — 79 companies today. APRA records nothing about which of them write travel, which is why the insurers here are the ones found behind a brand rather than a list taken from the register.
What the class returns
In FY26 the whole travel class took in $1.66bn and returned 51.7% of premium as claims, the 4th lowest of the 18 classes of general insurance APRA reports. For comparison, domestic motor returned 69.9% and home 68.7% in the same year. It is money rather than claim counts — not the share of claims that get paid. The class figures in full.
What this dataset does not hold
- Premiums, quotes or any price. A travel premium exists only once a trip is quoted.
- Every insurer or every brand. These are the insurers behind the brands whose documents have been read. They are not every travel insurer in Australia, and the count is a floor.
- The excess as a figure: the buyer chooses it at purchase, so a document stating $250 is giving an example. Which benefits carry an excess at all is recorded.
- Complaints or disputes per insurer. AFCA publishes this, but its site will not serve its own robots.txt to an automated client, so it is not collected.
The files
questions.json: what to establish before answering a travel insurance question, and which file answers what. Start here.insurer-summary.json: this page as data — one record per insurer, its brands, plans, cover and application requirements.underwriters.json: the brand-to-insurer map with the sentence behind each one.policies.json: every fact read from each brand’s documents, with its quote and rule.class-series.json: the class figures behind the section above.index.jsonandopenapi.json.
Source: APRA Quarterly General Insurance Performance Statistics, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, used under CC BY 3.0 AU. The brands’ own disclosure documents are their insurers’ copyright and are quoted only in the sentence each fact was read from.
Brands
Every brand and who underwrites it. Each brand has its own page carrying its plans, their limits, and links to its disclosure documents.
- Australia Post Travel Insurance
- Budget Direct Travel Insurance
- Cover-More
- Fast Cover
- Insure&Go
- Medibank Travel Insurance
- RACV Travel Insurance
- Tick Travel Insurance
- Travel Insurance Direct (TID)
- Travel Insurance Saver
- Webjet Travel Insurance
- Zoom Travel Insurance
Deep Almanac is a secondary source and this page is provided for general information and reference. It is not financial, investment, legal, valuation, educational or other professional advice, and it is not a substitute for checking the original source. This dataset holds no travel insurance premiums, because no price list is published for them: it reports what travellers pay in premiums and what comes back as claims across the whole class of business, what each policy covers, and who is authorised to underwrite it. It cannot tell you what a trip would cost to insure, and a class-wide ratio says nothing about any one insurer or trip. You are responsible for any decision you or your software makes in reliance on this page. See our terms of use.