By Dhillon Dhadda, Travel Advisor, Woodland Travel
Written September 2026. Prices are in US dollars and move with season and exchange rate — use them as a planning baseline, not a quote.
Travel insurance cost is simpler than people expect. Two inputs do nearly all the work: how much prepaid, non-refundable money you are protecting, and how old the travellers are. Destination and trip length matter at the margins. Almost nothing else does.
The usual range is 4% to 10% of insured trip cost for a comprehensive policy.
Travel insurance cost, in ranges
Rough premiums for a comprehensive policy covering two travellers, by age and trip value:
| Insured trip cost | Ages 35–45 | Ages 55–65 | Ages 70–75 ||---|---|---|---|| $5,000 | $200 – $300 | $300 – $450 | $500 – $750 || $10,000 | $350 – $550 | $550 – $850 | $950 – $1,500 || $20,000 | $650 – $1,000 | $1,000 – $1,600 | $1,900 – $2,900 |
The age effect is the striking one. The same $10,000 trip that costs a couple in their forties around $450 to insure costs a couple in their seventies around $1,200 — because the premium is largely pricing medical risk.
Cancel For Any Reason adds roughly 40% to 50% on top of whichever number applies to you.
Children are frequently free or heavily discounted on family plans, which surprises people.
What actually moves the price
Insured trip cost. The main lever, and the one you control. You insure your prepaid, non-refundable costs — not the whole holiday. Refundable hotel nights, the shopping money, meals you have not paid for yet: none of that needs insuring, and including it just raises the premium.
Age, in bands, usually stepping at 60, 65, 70 and 75.
Trip length, mildly.
Coverage limits, particularly the medical and evacuation caps.
What does not move it much: destination. A policy for Costa Rica and a policy for Portugal cost roughly the same.
The calculation that answers the question
Forget whether insurance "feels" worth it and run two numbers.
For worked examples of what "prepaid and non-refundable" actually adds up to, see our budgets for Norway, Costa Rica, a cruise and a destination wedding.
Number one: what do you lose if you cancel the week before? Add up the non-refundable deposits. On a $12,000 European trip booked a year ahead, that is often $9,000 to $11,000 by the final payment date. A $600 premium against $10,000 of exposure is 6%.
Number two: what is the worst medical outcome? This is the one that actually matters. A broken hip in a country where your health plan does not travel, plus an air ambulance home, runs $50,000 to $250,000. Most US health plans cover little or nothing abroad, and Original Medicare generally covers none of it.
If number one is small and number two is unlikely — a Napa weekend, everyone healthy, everything refundable — skip it honestly. If number one is five figures or number two is plausible, the premium stops being a question.
Three ways to pay less without buying less
Insure only what is genuinely non-refundable. The most common overpayment. Insuring $18,000 when $11,000 is at risk is money for nothing — with one exception: if you want CFAR or the pre-existing condition waiver, most plans require you to insure 100% of prepaid costs, and cutting the insured amount voids them.
Buy a single annual policy if you travel three or more times a year. Annual multi-trip plans commonly run $300 to $700 for a couple and beat buying four separate policies. The trade-off is lower per-trip cancellation limits — they are strongest on medical and weakest on trip cost.
Check your credit card first, then fill the gap. Premium cards often carry trip cancellation and delay coverage with $5,000 to $10,000 limits. That is genuine, and it is usually thin on medical and evacuation. Knowing what you already have means buying the piece you are missing rather than duplicating.
Where the cheap policies are cheap
A $150 policy on a $10,000 trip is not a bargain, it is a different product. The usual differences:
- Medical limits of $10,000 to $25,000 instead of $100,000 or more
- Evacuation limits under $100,000, which is below what an evacuation actually costs
- No pre-existing condition waiver
- Longer delay waiting periods — 12 hours instead of 6
- Weak or outsourced 24-hour assistance, which is the thing you are really buying
That last one is worth its own sentence. When something goes badly wrong overseas, the value of the policy is a competent person answering the phone at 3am and arranging the hospital and the flight. That service is what the extra premium buys, and it does not show up in a price comparison table.
One honest caveat
These are typical market ranges, not quotes, and this is not insurance advice. Actual premiums, coverage, exclusions and availability vary by plan, insurer and state — and the certificate of insurance is the document that governs.
We can quote plans alongside your booking and explain in plain language what each one does and does not do. Call Woodland Travel at (530) 662-5491 — ideally when you pay your deposit rather than when you pack, because the most valuable coverage is only available in the first couple of weeks.
