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Reaching your golden years doesn't mean your adventures have to end. In fact, in this stage of life, you'll hopefully have more time and resources to travel. But as a senior citizen, you'll want to ensure you have travel insurance that covers any health-related issues arise while you travel.
Best Senior Travel Insurance Companies of 2024 Summary
- Best overall: Allianz Travel Insurance
- Best for expensive trips: John Hancock Travel Insurance
- Best for age limits: TravelSafe Insurance
- Best for affordability: GeoBlue Travel Insurance
- Best for annual plans: Travel Guard
Top Travel Insurance for Seniors Comparison
Your health gets more unpredictable as you age, which makes travel insurance more important for seniors. Unfortunately, it's also more expensive. The best travel insurance for seniors won't have too steep of a price hike compared to rates for younger travelers. It will have high coverage limits for emergency medical coverage, trip cancellations, and and emergency medical evacuation. It's also important that your travel insurance offers pre-existing condition waivers, ideally at no extra cost to the traveler.
Here are our picks for the best travel insurance coverage for seniors in 2024.
Best Senior Travel Insurance Overall
Allianz Travel Insurance
Allianz is one of the most widely recognized names in travel insurance, and it stands out as one of the top travel insurance providers for seniors. It offers a wide range of policies covering medical treatments overseas and emergency medical transport.
Allianz also provides options for varying trip lengths. Its annual multi-trip policies, for example, cover any trip you make during your policy period, even if they aren't yet planned, making it an excellent option for seniors who vacation multiple times per year.
Read our Allianz Travel Insurance review.
Best Senior Travel Insurance for Expensive Trips
John Hancock Travel Insurance
John Hancock plans for seniors offer some of the best coverage available. It provides generous maximum benefit amounts while still offering affordable prices.
Each plan includes coverages like trip cancellation, emergency accident, and emergency medical, with the option to add benefits like CFAR (cancel for any reason). Plus, getting a free online quote is a quick and straightforward process.
Read our John Hancock Travel Insurance review.
Best Senior Travel Insurance for Age Limits
TravelSafe Insurance
TravelSafe is a great choice for older travelers, even among seniors, insuring travelers up to 100 years old. TravelSafe also offers pre-existing condition waivers for all its tiers when you purchase your policy within 21 days of your initial trip deposit. With a great deal of flexibility, travelers don't have to worry about eligibility when purchasing travel insurance with TravelSafe. TravelSafe even has two tiers of coverage devoted specifically to golfers.
Read our TravelSafe travel insurance review.
Best Senior Travel Insurance for Affordability
GeoBlue Travel Insurance
GeoBlue is a travel insurance provider that specializes in travel medical insurance. Because it doesn't offer much trip protection or travel inconvenience coverage, it can charge cheaper premiums than its competitors, earning it a spot among the best cheap travel insurance.
GeoBlue's policies cover travelers who are under 95 years old, offering sizeable coverage for emergency medical treatments (up to $1 million) and medical evacuations (up to $500K). It's worth noting that while coverage for pre-existing conditions are available, it costs extra.
Read our GeoBlue Travel Insurance review.
Best Senior Travel Insurance for Annual Plans
Travel Guard
Travel Guard offers comprehensive insurance plans for shorter and longer trips. One of its more unique offerings is its Travel Guard Annual Plan.
This annual travel insurance comes with standard coverage benefits (trip delay, baggage loss, etc.) and substantial coverage amounts, which is important for seniors who travel multiple times per year. Travel Guard also offers a pre-existing medical condition waiver, meaning those with certain medical issues can still gain coverage.
Read our AIG Travel Guard Insurance review.
Understanding Travel Insurance for Seniors
Before diving into the specifics, it's essential to understand what travel insurance is and why it's particularly important for senior travelers. The best travel insurance offers financial protection against unexpected events affecting your trip, such as trip cancellations, medical emergencies, or lost luggage.
Types of coverage
- Medical Coverage: Ensures your medical expenses are covered in case of illness or injury.
- Trip Cancellation/Interruption Coverage: Provides reimbursement if your trip is canceled or cut short due to unforeseen events.
- Baggage Coverage: Covers loss, damage, or theft of personal items during your trip.
- Pre-existing condition coverage: Can mean two different things: coverage for trip cancellations as a result of pre-existing conditions or medical expenses as a result of pre-existing conditions. Either way, policy must be purchased within a certain time frame from when you booked your trip, usually two or three weeks.
Benefits of travel insurance for seniors
- Peace of Mind: Knowing you're covered in case of emergencies can make your travel stress-free.
- Financial Protection: Shields you from potentially overwhelming medical costs and trip cancellations fees.
- Assistance Services: Many plans offer 24/7 assistance services, providing help whenever and wherever you need it.
Making the most of your plan
After choosing a plan, it's crucial to understand your policy fully and know what services are available to you in case of an emergency.
Understanding your policy
When you purchase a travel insurance policy, you'll be able to see a description of benefits, which is a long document that describes the exceptions and limitations to your coverage. You should carefully review this document so you're not blindsided by unexpected claim denials.
For example, if you're canceling a trip because unexpected work, you may not be eligible for coverage if you haven't worked at your company for long enough. Additionally, you should review your policy to ensure that your pre-existing condition is covered, as companies often have very specific language around what qualifies as a covered pre-existing condition.
Emergency assistance services
Most companies offer a 24/7 concierge service that can help you navigate situations that arise during your trip, even issues beyond the scope of your policy. They can advise you on how to navigate these situations in accordance with your policy and make sure you acquire the necessary documentation when you need to file a claim down the line.
How to Pick Travel Insurance as a Senior Traveler
It's wise to compare several different travel insurance policies for the best coverage and pricing, as premiums vary widely between insurers and depend on factors like your age and travel destination.
That said, some of the more essential coverages to look for if you're a senior citizen include:
- Travel medical coverage - This coverage will pay for your medical bills outside the US.
- Medical evacuation coverage - If you're injured or become sick while traveling, this coverage will transport you to the nearest hospital or even back home if your condition necessitates it.
- Pre-existing conditions - Coverage for known health conditions. You'll need to purchase travel insurance within a certain time period from when you book your trip to qualify for a pre-existing condition waiver.
- Cancel for any reason (CFAR) - The name says it all! It'll cost extra and you'll need to purchase insurance early, but it's the most comprehensive trip cancellation coverage you can get. Note that CFAR insurance usually only covers up to 75% of your trip fees.
- Trip cancellation insurance - This coverage provides reimbursement for your prepaid and nonrefundable costs if you cannot make your trip due to an unforeseen event.
- Baggage delay insurance - This coverage will reimburse you for essentials like toiletries and clothes if your bags are delayed.
- Lost luggage insurance - This coverage will reimburse you up to a specified amount if your bags get lost en route.
Of these, the most critical to note are whether or not your policy covers pre-existing conditions and the limits for travel medical insurance and emergency medical evacuation.
Some insurance companies offer a waiver that will cover pre-existing conditions. You'll have to follow the requirements for adding a waiver to your policy, like insuring the entire cost of your trip. Or purchase the policy within a specific time after making your first trip deposit payments.
You'll also want to find a policy with high maximum limits for travel medical and emergency medical evacuation coverage. These types of expenses can be substantial, so you want to have appropriate coverage.
Why You Should Trust Us: How We Reviewed Senior Travel Insurance
When comparing senior travel insurance options, we looked at the following factors to evaluate each travel insurance provider:
- Coverage limits: We looked at each travel insurance company's coverage amounts for benefits like medical emergencies and trip cancellation.
- Flexibility: We looked at how customizable a policy is, so you can choose what your travel insurance policy covers and how much coverage you receive. We also looked at the age limits for a company's policy.
- Coverage for pre-existing conditions: Pre-existing conditions are one of the more critical factors for travel insurance for senior citizens, so we looked at travel insurance companies that offer the best coverage for pre-existing conditions.
- Price: We compared travel insurance providers offering reasonable basic and comprehensive coverage rates.
- Benefits geared towards seniors: We compared travel insurance companies that offer solid coverage for senior citizens, like medical evacuation, COVID-19 coverage, and trip cancellation.
You can read more about our insurance rating methodology here.
Best Senior Travel Insurance FAQs
Seniors should look for travel insurance policies that offer comprehensive medical coverage, including for pre-existing conditions and emergency medical evacuation. They should also consider policies with higher coverage limits to ensure adequate protection. Additionally, seniors should seek travel insurance plans that provide 24/7 assistance services, as well as coverage for trip cancellations, interruptions, and baggage protection.
When it comes to saving money on senior travel insurance, you should only be covering the services that you need. For example, if your plane ticket and hotel stay are refundable, there's no need to purchase trip cancellation.
All travel insurance companies included in this guide offer coverage for pre-existing medical conditions as long as you buy your policy within the qualifying period from when you placed your trip deposit.
The best travel insurance for seniors is Allianz due to its wide array of medical coverages and emergency medical transport. Allianz also offers multi-trip insurance policies, which could make sense for seniors who travel frequently.
Most travel insurance companies will have an age limit, often only insuring people 80 years old and younger. However, many of the insurance companies in our guide have higher limits or no age limit at all.
Editorial Note: Any opinions, analyses, reviews, or recommendations expressed in this article are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any card issuer. Read our editorial standards.
Please note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they're subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.
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