We’ll admit it…we didn’t use travel insurance until we set out on our trip around the world. We’d see that option at the bottom of the Orbitz checkout page and think, “Nah, we’ll be fine.” We didn’t want to bother with it every time we booked a trip somewhere and we still don’t—that’s why we go with the Allianz AllTrips Plan. (Disclaimer: Yes, we are ambassadors for them but we bought our own annual travel insurance for four years before we started working with Allianz). For a couple hundred bucks a year, the two of us are covered for virtually any medical emergency, trip interruption, and snafus on the road—no matter how many trips we go on. And we don’t need to fill out paperwork or call them when heading out on safari or river rafting into the wilderness; our coverage is always on, 24/7/365.
While we’ll take any excuse to travel, we know there are a lot of things that hold people back. There are many moving parts and plenty that can go awry, but you don’t have to go it alone. We travel because it has enriched our lives and filled our hearts. We blog to inspire people to explore the world and find that same joy. And we truly believe in travel insurance because it helps people take the leap and catch them if they fall.
We know travel insurance doesn’t sound particularly sexy but if it helps you travel more, smarter, safer, and pay you money when things don’t work out—that’s hot.
Annual Travel Insurance 101
Annual travel insurance gives you emergency health coverage, trip protection, and benefits for a year’s worth of adventure–internationally or domestically. (Even when you just go 100 miles from your house!) More than covering emergencies, it helps you out with bumps in the road, like trip delay, lost/stolen baggage, rental car damage, and offers a 24/7 assistance hotline for any travel-related emergencies. The AllTrips Basic Plan covers nearly $200,000 worth of damages for as little as $135 a year. (FYI price quotes are dependent on your state of residence and age, but we just did an experiment and that’s the price for a 20-year old from Oregon and a 70-year old from New Jersey). The plans are tiered, so as the price goes up, so does the coverage amount; plus, AllTrips Prime and AllTrips Premier (our plan) give handsome compensation for Trip Cancelation and Trip Interruption.
Now, the fun reasons on why AllTrips is the best annual travel insurance to have in your quiver…
Adventure On
We like to hike peaks, jump into glacier lakes, eat strange foods, ride chicken buses, and get way off the beaten track. We’re often on our own–far from other tourists, hospitals, and police stations–but we never worry because Allianz has our back. Our plan covers us for $50,000 in emergency medical and $500,000 if we need to get medivac-ed out of a craggy canyon.
Helps You Tick Off That Bucket List
Three of the most epic trips we’ve ever done–cruising to Antarctica, island-hopping the Galapagos, and river rafting 100 miles into the largest contiguous wilderness area in the lower 48–all required travel insurance. Might as well get the AllTrips plan and go on a few bucket-list adventures per year. Life is short, get after it!
Pampers Your Problems Away
When you find out your flight is delayed for hours or your baggage has gone missing, that’s a hard to pill to swallow. But it goes down a little easier when it means you’ll be eating a fancy dinner or getting a couples massage, courtesy of your travel insurance. If your trip is delayed six hours or more and you have the Premier Plan, Allianz will throw you $300 a day to go have some fun, and if your luggage never shows up, you’ll get a $1,000 shopping spree.
Sparks up Spontaneity
Your friend got an extra ticket to the hurling world championships in Ireland? Snowstorm just dumped a foot of fresh powder on Tahoe? Last-minute flight deal to Thailand too good to pass up? Go for it! You’ll work out the logistics later, your trip’s already insured.
Road-Trip Ready
We’ve taken every method of transport and when we don’t have Buddy the Camper, we find renting a car is the most efficient and spontaneous way to explore a new country. All annual plans include the Rental Car Damage Protector (available to residents of most states) and covers the costs if a car you’re renting gets stolen or damaged, up to $45,000.
24-Hour Wingman
When we’re at a hotel, we love the fact that there’s a concierge to help with whatever little questions or travel suggestions we need. And with our AllTrips plan, whether we’re at an Airbnb or in the camper, we still have that service. Allianz’s Concierge can answer all sorts of travel questions and help you secure restaurant reservations, tee times, concert tickets, and whatever fun needs organizing. And when we get ourselves into trouble, there’s a 24-hour hotline with multilingual assistance to sort out our travel emergency—from getting a doctor to a new passport.
TravelSmart
Our phone is our mobile office, so we love that the free Allianz TravelSmart App helps us stay organized and safe on the go. Through the app you can check our flight status, find emergency numbers and facilities, look up medical terms in foreign languages, file and track a claim, and a bunch of other goodies to make your travels smoother.
Find Your Annual Plan
We travel full time, so the AllTrips Premier Plan is the best annual travel insurance for us because it covers trip interruption, trip cancellation, and increases the monetary coverage across the board. Though if you only travel a few times a year, the Basic Plan is a super deal. Take a closer look at each plan’s coverage to see which one best fits your needs. No matter what you do, stop rolling the di and get annual travel insurance that can even make the rough days fun!
Disclaimer: We work as ambassadors for Allianz Global Assistance (AGA Service Company). While we receive financial compensation for our work, we exclusively use their travel insurance because of the quality of their services.
It always surprises me how many people travel without insurance. I always say if you can’t afford insurance you can’t afford to travel. Like you we now just buy an annual policy. Much more cost effective and means better piece of mind.
TOTALLY agree Jean. Especially with an Annual Plan (like the Allianz AllTrips Premier that we have)…I mean our plan is $450 (and it covers the whole family), and covers every single flight, every trip, ever cruise, ever bag, every injury…I mean anyone who takes more than 1 or 2 trips a year (including business trips) should DEFINITELY have an annual plan!
Alltrips Basic Plan seems to make sense. We suffered a lot in 2018 when our airline declared bankruptcy the day we were supposed to fly.
That’s terrible! Wish you had AllTrips, they would have saved the day!
Yes, we too have become great fans of travel insurance, especially if it’s a long one. Alltrips Basic Plan seems to make sense and there’s no harm in trying it out.
An off topic, where was the first photo of this post taken?
That first photo was taken at Iceberg Lake at Glacier National Park. Yea, definitely give it a go, AllTrips can be cheaper than one-off trip plans and you’re covered all year!
I am a huge fan of travel insurance. Yes, I have definitely paid out more than I’ve ever claimed, but the reassurance of having travel insurance is worth every penny! The Allianz AllTrips Plan sounds like a great wide-reaching plan… I like the idea of the premium plan and making the most of delays with a massage!
Love that Allianz has shorted the time on what’s considered a “delay” and made reimbursement super easy. Plus, you’re ready no matter what comes your way!
I was very interested in reading this post. We travel about 6 months a year and have looked for coverage for the year. But when we looked for it before, it always had a cap on the number of days that our trips exceeded. I will definitely check to see if there is a plan that works for us as Canadians.
LD, yeah there are some caps in number of days each trip can be…so that’s a real thing to look into if you are going to be gone for ultra-long trips!
Seems like something to look more into. I have never bought travel insurance before. A few times it seems like that would have helped.
Absolutely. I just love that it’s always on…you would never think to get travel insurance for a road trip a few hours from your house, but we all travel more than we think these days and you’ll even be covered for little trips (much less flights and international adventures)
I am a great fan of travel insurance and never travel without it. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. It has saved me on more than one occasion and made my life so much easier when I was stuck in Istanbul due to flight cancellations.
That’s fantastic your a travel insurance fan. It makes so much sense! So glad to great to hear it helped you out in Istanbul and beyond!
I had no idea was there such thing as annual travel insurance. That would make it so much less of a hassle, actually no hassle at all. Absolutely love the trip delay cash and spending spree money if luggage gets lost
Annual travel insurance is awesome, right?! Set it and forget it! I could hardly believe Allianz’s generous reimbursements on such short delays too..shows they actually care!
Having annual travel insurance is such a must have, especially doing the full-time type of travel that my family and I do. I’ve heard of Allianz before, but we ended up choosing to go with World Nomads. I think in the end, they are all pretty similar services.
When we were traveling abroad for two straight years, we also used World Nomads (even though it’s a lot more expensive than Allianz). Though if you pop into your hometown throughout the year, the AllTrips plan resets to cover your ongoing travels. Something to consider.
Even people who don’t live to travel constantly like we do find that little trips stack up quickly. AllTrips is always there at the ready, even for those last minute weekend getaways.
I totally agree…it’s actually best for people who take lots of small trips, as there are so many connections, flights, hotel reservations, etc. involved.
I haven’t used travel insurance yet, but with more and more trips being planned over the next few years it’s certainly something I’m considering. A lottt more research needed to be done on though on figuring out what’s best. I see how to figure out estimates for individual trips but if expecting to travel more long-term in the future, at what point do you suggest going for a year-round plan and how much should it be expected to cost?
Great questions Lindsey…just to give you some real numbers. We have the Allianz Annual Premier Plan, and it costs us $450 for the ENTIRE year for our entire family (which in our case is me and my wife). And that covers every single trip we take, every cruise, every hotel booking, every piece of luggage, every adventure, and every injury we might incur abroad….and we never have to hem and haw if it’s worth it, we just pay once per year and we are covered for every single trip our family takes. No brainer.
I didn’t even realize annual travel insurance was such a thing! I travel off and on throughout the year so the All Trips plan makes total sense for me! Thanks!
Yeah annual travel insurance has been so key for us. We buy it once each year then never think of it for ALL our trips, so clutch!