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Of every five young Australian travellers setting off overseas, two end up making a claim on their travel insurance, according to startling statistics uncovered by a financial comparison site.

Canstar.com.au found that more than one in 10 Australian travellers (11%) had made a travel insurance claim following their most recent holiday – and this number almost doubled, to more than two in five (21%), of those aged 18 to 29 years.

Canstar, a leading research agency which claims the title of Australia’s biggest financial comparison site, dedicates itself to comparing brands and products.

The company has just released its 2019 Travel Insurance Star Ratings and Awards, which it says highlights the providers offering the greatest value.

“The new 2019 Travel Insurance Star Ratings Canstar compared 263 policies from 88 eligible providers,” Canstar stated.

“This year, Canstar.com.au has recognised a total of five insurers with a highly coveted Outstanding Value Award, in the categories of international, domestic and cruise travel, as well as announcing the winner of a specific Award for seniors’ travel.

  • Outstanding Value Domestic Travel Insurance: HIF, InsureandGo
  • Outstanding Value International Travel Insurance: Holiday Rescue, Tick Travel Insurance, World2Cover 
  • Outstanding Value Cruise Travel Insurance: Holiday Rescue, Tick Travel Insurance 
  • Outstanding Value Seniors Travel Insurance: Tick Travel Insurance, World2Cover

The latest Star Ratings research also uncovered the average cost of a 5-Star Rated travel insurance policy, compared to the market average – revealing a single traveller could pay approximately AUD 46 less if they opted for a 5-Star Rated policy.

Travel Insurance Premiums

5-Star Average vs. Market Average

Profile Market Average 5 Star Average Difference
Couple $217 $136 $81
Family $229 $136 $93
Senior Single $260 $148 $112
Mature Single $152 $88 $63
Single $118 $72 $46
Source: Canstar.com.au

Travel Insurance Star Ratings, August 2019. Averages across all destinations, travel durations and lead times for the specified profile types. Prices correct as of 17 August, 2019.

To reach its findings, Canstar says it deployed a team of researchers who spent months comparing 263 policies from 88 eligible providers across five consumer profiles for travel to 10 destination regions, as well as on cruises.

The team then combined the Star Ratings they gave to particular providers’ policies across each of these profiles, in order to calculate the overall travel insurance Award winners for 2019.

The company says it uses certain criteria, which all policies must meet to be considered for an award or star rating with Canstar.

“For example, they must have a minimum medical cover of AUD 5 million, including repatriation (emergency transportation back to Australia) for international policies,” Canstar’s Group Manager of Research and Ratings Mitch Watson said.

“They must also cover cancellation of the trip, luggage and personal effects.”

Watson said while price was one way to separate policies, it often did not tell the whole story, especially for customer service aspects – such as what it was like to make a claim. The Canstar team applied a methodology that compared both cost and features, to better reflect how travellers thought about buying travel insurance.

“When we conduct our ratings, we weight price and features equally in our equations in all profiles except for seniors,” Watson said.

“This is because travellers are typically not likely to just take cost into consideration when taking out a policy. They want to know that they will be covered for certain misadventures – that’s the whole point of insurance.

“In senior profiles, we assign even greater consideration to features.”

Edited by Peter Needham