Yearly Travel Insurance - Everything You Need to Know

Want to know all about yearly travel insurance?

Check out this guide and get all your questions answered including what it covers, when to buy it, and pros and cons. It’s all here.

Yearly Travel Insurance – What Is It?

Can I Get 1 Year Travel Insurance?

Yes you can get 1 year travel insurance. Sometimes this insurance is called annual travel insurance or multi-trip travel insurance. It covers you for multiple travel trips during the whole of one year. . 1 year travel insurance is ideal for regular or frequent travellers.

Yearly travel insurance is a policy that covers you wherever you travel for a whole year.

It is sometimes called annual travel insurance or multi-trip travel insurance.

You take out a policy on a selected start date and it covers you for a whole year from that date.

This type of travel insurance is different to longer term cover for those who might be backpacking, volunteering or working abroad. This insurance is aimed at those who travel regularly but with trips that are generally 3 weeks or less at a time. (Check the specifics of the cover you are interested in for the time limits per trip.)

single and annual travel insurance sign up

Yearly Travel Insurance

What Does it Cover?

The cover is the same as single trip travel insurance. The level of coverage you choose depends on your individual preference.

As you can see in the picture below the medical expenses covered are the same for each of the policies. However, there are increased benefits for cancellation, baggage and abandonment of the trip available with the Bronze, Silver Plus and Gold policies.

Yearly Travel Insurance

Where Does It Cover?

When selecting yearly travel insurance you choose the part of the world you will be travelling to.

Coverwise, who I use for travel insurance, have 3 options for this;

Europe including the United Kingdom
The World excluding the US, Canada and the Caribbean
The World including the US, Canada and the Caribbean

You select the option that suits your travel plans for the coming year.

Yearly Travel Insurance

What Type of Trips Are Covered?

With yearly travel insurance, you need to think about the types of trips you will be taking during the year of your policy.

If you are going to be taking any trips involving winter sports, for example, skiing trips, then you need to select a policy that covers this.

Coverwise has a yearly travel insurance policy available with and without winter sports. The policy with winter sports will be a higher premium because of the higher risk.

Yearly Travel Insurance

How Many Trips Are Covered?

With this type of yearly travel insurance there is generally a limit on the length of trips you can take. Generally there isn’t a restriction on the number of trips you can take in a year (check your policy details to be sure).

If you plan to stay longer in a destination there are specialist policies that cover extended stays. They are called long-stay policies. GoCompare is a good place to compare cover if this suits you better.

For Coverwise the trip lengths are as follows;

Standard Plus and Bronze Policies – maximum trip length of 24 days
Silver, Silver Plus and Gold Policies – maximum trip length 31 days

If you choose winter sports cover then trip lengths are as follows;

Standard Plus and Bronze Policies – total of 17 days winter sports per year
Silver, Silver Plus and Gold Policies – maximum trip length 17 days but can take multiple trips

Coverwise’s policy has no limits on the number of trips taken in a year.

Yearly Travel Insurance

Is It More Expensive?

You might assume that yearly travel insurance is more expensive – but it is never wise to assume!

In a recent video, I did a comparison of single-trip travel insurance versus yearly travel insurance on the Coverwise website. The results showed that yearly travel insurance was actually cheaper – strange but true!

Here is the video of the online search so you can see the results for yourself 🙂

Yearly Travel Insurance

What Do I Need to Know?

As with any travel insurance policy you must declare fully any relevant information. In relation to a travel insurance policy this is mainly going to relate to your health and fitness.

Remember to declare all your health conditions fully, even if they don’t affect you that much. Not declaring them could result in your travel insurance not being valid.

With a yearly travel insurance policy it is very important to update your insurance company if anything changes in relation to your health during the year. This includes;

Getting diagnosed with a condition
Being prescribed medication
Being put on the waiting list for any type of operation
Being affected by any condition including mental health issues

If in doubt declare it. Yes, it might increase your premium but that is way better than finding out you don’t actually have any cover when you come to make a claim or get paid out for a claim.

Yearly Travel Insurance

Who Is Covered?

There are various options for coverage with this type of travel insurance. Coverwise covers up to 9 people. They offer a family yearly travel insurance policy which covers 2 adults and an unlimited number of children and ste children under 18.

Individual cover is also available.

No matter which cover you choose the benefits listed under the policy is per person – this is not the total for the whole group.

Yearly Travel Insurance

Excess

The level of excess depends on the policy you choose. An excess is a small amount that you pay yourself for each claim. The rest is covered by the insurance company. The excess is payable for each claim.

Yearly Travel Insurance

Declare, Declare, Declare

OK so I am going to repeat myself here but it’s because it is really important. When you take out your policy you must declare everything for every passenger. Be honest about your health and medical conditions. If you leave something out you are taking the risk that you won’t be covered in the event of something happening. Yes, you may have to pay a little more for your insurance, but that is much better than ending up with a bill for thousands of pounds because you have no travel insurance.

If your policy is for more than 1 person you need to complete all the information for each traveller and be completely honest about each one.

A number of times I have met travellers on holiday who haven’t declared something about their health because they felt it wasn’t relevant. My advice would be leave that to the travel insurance company to decide rather than you.

Yearly Travel Insurance

Update, Update, Update

A great deal can change in a year and that can be the case when it comes to your health. Remember to keep your travel insurance updated with all your current health and medical conditions as they change through the year.

This can be easy to miss, especially if you don’t have a trip planned. However, missing this step could mean that you end up with no cover when you do travel.

This applies to each of the travellers on the policy – any changes in any of their health or medical conditions needs to be updated to the insurance company.

Yearly Travel Insurance

When to Buy?

As Martin Lewis, the money saving expert says, buy your travel insurance as soon as you book. This means you may have some cancellation coverage under your travel insurance policy (depending on your policy terms and conditions).

Any trips booked before the policy is taken out don’t count in terms of cancellation policies, even if the travel insurance is a yearly policy.

My advice? Take out your travel insurance before you book your trip. Coverwise provides from £1,000 to £6,000 cancellation or curtailment cover per person depending on the level of cover you choose.

Yearly Travel Insurance Pros and Cons

Pros

Covers multiple trips during a year
Great value cover for more regular travellers
Different levels of cover
Benefits are per person per policy i.e. £2 million medical cover is per person, not per policy

Cons

Can be a long time between taking insurance out and travelling
Easy to forget to update the travel insurance company in relation to any new medical or health changes

Yearly Travel Insurance Summary

Yearly travel insurance is great for more regular or frequent travellers
It is ideal for those travelling regularly for trips under around 3 weeks at a time
Yearly travel insurance can be cheaper than single trip insurance cover