The Best Flight Cancellation Insurance: What It Covers and When It’s Worth It

Canceling a flight can unravel your trip plans and be costly if your plane tickets are nonrefundable.

That’s why flight cancellation insurance can come in handy if your plans for air travel change for a covered reason. Whether it’s an unexpected illness, job loss, or death in the family, flight cancellation insurance can reimburse you for your nonrefundable flight costs if you need to cancel your plans.

This guide explains what you can get from flight cancellation insurance, when getting a policy might make sense, and offers a look at flight cancellation insurance plans that offer good value.

What Is Flight Cancellation Insurance?

Flight cancellation insurance is a type of travel insurance. With flight cancellation insurance or a travel insurance policy with flight cancellation benefits, you can get reimbursement for prepaid, nonrefundable trip expenses if you cancel your flight for a covered reason.

Flight cancellation coverage is typically offered as a coverage type within a comprehensive travel insurance policy that covers trip cancellation, trip interruption, travel delay, baggage, and emergency medical expenses.

Although it’s common to find flight cancellation insurance as part of a package deal, you might also be able to buy a standalone policy just for flight cancellation benefits through an airline or travel booking website.

When you use flight cancellation insurance, your flight cost is protected. However, flight cancellation travel insurance may be paired with other coverage, including trip cancellation benefits extending to hotels, tours, and transportation. That can reimburse travel costs that become unusable after a canceled flight.

How Flight Cancellation Insurance Works

Once you’ve purchased a policy, your flight is covered for unexpected cancellations under the plan’s approved reasons. Covered reasons vary by insurer but typically include illness, injury, severe weather, and death.

If you need to cancel your trip, you must file a claim to get reimbursed for your qualifying prepaid nonrefundable expenses. You should include the necessary documentation, such as flight details, receipts, and proof that you’ve experienced a covered cancellation reason and have canceled your trip.

The insurer reviews your claim, and if it’s approved, you’ll be reimbursed up to the limits of your policy. This typically includes your nonrefundable flight costs and extends to other nonrefundable travel costs if you have a comprehensive travel insurance plan with trip cancellation coverage.

When To Buy Flight Cancellation Insurance

The best time to buy flight cancellation insurance is when you book your flight. You maximize your protection by doing so, because you can claim reimbursement if you need to cancel your flight, and that could happen any time between booking and taking your flight. It’s best to be covered for the entire period.

If you wait too long to purchase flight cancellation insurance, your options may be limited. You’ll also be unprotected if you need to cancel your flight but haven’t purchased it yet. Some policies allow you to purchase flight cancellation insurance just a few days before your trip starts, but you won’t be covered for anything that happened before your purchase. For example, if you purchase flight cancellation insurance after a hurricane is named, you won’t be able to claim flight cancellation benefits for that hurricane.

Hot Tip:

If you want the best options, such as cancel for any reason (CFAR), you generally need to buy flight cancellation insurance within 14 to 21 days of your initial trip deposit.

Is Flight Cancellation Insurance Worth It?

Flight cancellation insurance is worth it if you’ve booked a nonrefundable flight, especially if your plane tickets are expensive or you’re worried you might need to cancel your trip.

Buying flight cancellation insurance for a costly nonrefundable plane ticket generally makes sense. If you’ve booked a nonrefundable fare, such as basic economy, you could be out hundreds, even thousands of dollars if you don’t take your flight. With flight cancellation insurance, you could be reimbursed for your tickets if you have to cancel your flight for a covered reason.

Flight cancellation insurance can offer additional reassurance if you travel with weather or health concerns. For example, if you’re traveling to the Caribbean during hurricane season, you might need to cancel your trip because of a named storm. Or if you or a family member has a health condition, you might have to stay home for a while. You should have flight cancellation insurance if you unexpectedly have to postpone your trip.

However, flight cancellation insurance isn’t always necessary. Your airfare may offer free changes or cancellations. If that’s the case, flight cancellation coverage wouldn’t apply because it can only be used for nonrefundable expenses.

Flight cancellation insurance won’t offer much if you’ve booked an award flight using points and miles. That’s because flight cancellation insurance only covers reimbursement for dollars. You wouldn’t get your points or miles back if you canceled your flight, though you would get reimbursed for the taxes and fees you paid to book the award flight.

Also, consider whether credit card benefits cover you. Many travel credit cards offer free trip cancellation and interruption coverage as a cardholder benefit. You don’t need to purchase separate flight cancellation insurance if you used a credit card with adequate trip cancellation benefits, as you’re already covered.

Bottom Line:

Flight cancellation insurance makes sense when you’ve booked costly nonrefundable airfare with cash and don’t have trip cancellation benefits with your credit card.

What Flight Cancellation Insurance Covers

Flight cancellation insurance covers nonrefundable flight cancellations for covered reasons. Covered reasons for cancelling a flight typically include:

• Illness or injury for covered travelers or your immediate family
• Weather or natural disasters
• Death in the family
• Employment layoff
• Terrorism

However, there are common exclusions. For example, you might not get reimbursement for a flight you canceled for a hurricane threat unless there’s a named storm. If you have a preexisting health condition, you need a policy that specifically allows you to claim flight cancellation benefits with a covered preexisting condition. Employment layoff flight cancellation benefits may require that you’ve been employed continuously for at least a year.

You could pay extra to get CFAR coverage, which offers reimbursement for a portion of your cancelled flight if you cancel for any reason — including reasons not covered by standard flight cancellation insurance. You typically have to purchase CFAR coverage within 2 weeks of your initial trip deposit, and the reimbursement allowance is usually around 75%.

Flight cancellation insurance is often part of a comprehensive travel insurance policy, which offers additional coverage beyond flight cancellations. If you need to cancel your trip, your travel insurance policy could cover not just your flight but also nonrefundable hotel, tour, and other expenses. Common coverage areas for travel insurance include:

• Baggage delay and loss
• Emergency medical
• Medical evacuation and repatriation
• Missed connection
• Rental car damage
• Travel delay
• Trip cancellation
• Trip interruption

Another option is annual travel insurance, which could be cost-effective if you’re a frequent flyer. You can use annual travel insurance to pay once per year and be covered for all your travel (including flights) within the coverage period.

What To Look for in a Flight Cancellation Insurance Policy

Not all flight cancellation insurance policies are the same, so you should consider the costs and benefits of each policy. Look at these factors to understand whether a flight cancellation insurance plan offers the best coverage and cost for your needs:

• Cost: Get a quote for each policy to know how much you’ll pay to be covered by the plan.
• Coverage: Look at coverage features, including covered flight cancellation reasons and additional benefits the policy may offer, such as trip interruption and emergency medical coverage.
• Limits: Know how much the policy covers. Trip cancellation benefits usually cover 100% of your nonrefundable trip costs, but verifying coverage is a good idea.
• Deductibles: Some coverage may require paying a deductible before your benefits apply.
• Exclusions: Understand what is and isn’t covered, especially covered reasons for flight cancellation, such as preexisting medical conditions.

What Flight Cancellation Insurance Costs

Flight cancellation insurance may cost between 5% and 10% of your insured travel cost when it’s part of a comprehensive travel insurance policy, though you may find coverage for more or less than that. For example, you’d pay between $125 to $250 for a $2,500 trip.

However, you may find a less pricey policy, especially if you purchase standalone flight cancellation coverage that’s not part of a comprehensive travel insurance plan.

Travel Cards With Flight Cancellation Insurance

Your flight cancellation coverage could be free with the right card. Many travel cards offer trip protection as a complimentary cardholder benefit. Your travel card may offer trip protection benefits, including coverage for trip cancellations and interruptions, trip delays, baggage insurance, and travel accidents. Trip cancellation benefits cover qualifying flight cancellations.

Some of the best cards with trip protection benefits, such as trip cancellation coverage, include the Chase Sapphire Preferred^® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve^®, The Platinum Card^® from American Express, and Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.

How To Get Flight Cancellation Insurance

Flight cancellation insurance is available directly from travel insurance companies, as a credit card benefit, or when you book your flight with an airline or third-party travel booking service.

You may see flight protection as an optional add-on at checkout when you purchase airfare. You can also shop for travel insurance directly from travel insurance companies. Another option is to use a travel insurance broker or agent or shop on travel insurance aggregator sites such as Squaremouth, making comparing prices and coverage easy.

These are some of the flight cancellation options you’ll have if you purchase flight cancellation insurance from the airline or travel booking site:

The 5 Best Flight Cancellation Insurance Plans

Most comprehensive travel insurance policies with trip cancellation and interruption benefits offer flight cancellation coverage, so you have plenty of options for flight cancellation insurance. We compared travel insurance plans with flight cancellation insurance for a 45-year-old visiting Iceland on a $2,500 trip. See how each of these plans stacks up:

Best Flight Cancellation Insurance for Low Cost: battleface Discovery

The Battleface Discovery plan had the lowest cost for flight cancellation coverage. If you need to cancel your flight or other travel arrangements for reasons including COVID-19, weather, terrorism, employment layoff, or medical reasons such as illness, injury, or death, you can get reimbursed for 100% of your trip cost. Cancel-for-any-reason coverage is an optional upgrade. Our quote for this policy was $46.30.

Best Flight Cancellation Insurance for Comprehensive Coverage: TinLeg Economy

The TinLeg Economy travel insurance plan offers a little bit of everything, covering not just flight and trip cancellations, but trip interruptions, travel delays, missed connections, baggage delay and loss, emergency medical, medical evacuation, and accidental death. Other plans might offer higher benefit limits for these coverage areas, but this plan offers a good variety of coverage for a low price. It’s a good choice if you’re mainly concerned with flight cancellation but want a bit of coverage for other just-in-case situations. We were quoted $53 for this plan.

Best Flight Cancellation Insurance for Covered Reasons: Berkshire Hathaway ExactCare Value

Berkshire Hathaway’s ExactCare Value travel insurance plan offers numerous covered reasons for trip cancellation. You can cancel for COVID-19, weather, terrorism, financial default, employment layoff, and medical reasons. In addition to trip cancellation, the plan offers trip interruption, travel delay, emergency medical coverage, medical evacuation, baggage delay, or loss coverage. We got a $54 quote for this policy.

Best Flight Cancellation Insurance for Trip Interruption: WorldTrips Escape

Trip cancellation coverage offers reimbursement for cancelled travel plans, including flights, but trip interruption coverage can help if you have to cut your trip short. The WorldTrips Escape plan offers 125% reimbursement for your nonrefundable trip costs if your trip is interrupted. Our quote for this policy was $68.

Best Flight Cancellation Insurance for Primary Medical Coverage: Trawick International Safe Travels Protect

If you’re mainly concerned with flight cancellation coverage, you might not look closely at other coverage areas, such as medical benefits. However, medical coverage can offer additional reassurance if you don’t need to cancel your flight. The Trawick Safe Travels Protect plan is good for travel medical benefits, as it offers primary medical coverage. That means you don’t have to make a claim with other insurance before your Trawick policy pays out. This policy was quoted to us for $65.39.

Final Thoughts

Flight cancellation insurance can be a smart investment if you’re booking nonrefundable airfare, especially if you’re concerned about the risk of illness, severe weather, or other unexpected disruptions. It doesn’t always make sense in cases such as when you book a flexible fare or award ticket, but flight cancellation insurance can save you hundreds or thousands of dollars if you need to cancel your air travel plans for a covered reason.

You can get the best value from flight cancellation insurance by purchasing a policy as soon as you book your flight. Consider upgrading with CFAR if you need additional flexibility. But don’t forget to check whether your credit card already offers trip cancellation benefits, in which case you might not need a separate policy at all.

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For the trip cancellation and interruption insurance benefit of The Platinum Card^® from American Express, the maximum benefit amount for trip cancellation and interruption insurance is $10,000 per covered trip and $20,000 per eligible card per 12 consecutive month period. Eligibility and benefit level varies by card. Terms, conditions and limitations apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by New Hampshire Insurance Company, an AIG Company.

For the trip delay insurance benefit of The Platinum Card^® from American Express, up to $500 per covered trip that is delayed for more than 6 hours; and 2 claims per eligible card per 12 consecutive month period. Eligibility and benefit level varies by card. Terms, conditions and limitations apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by New Hampshire Insurance Company, an AIG Company.

For the baggage insurance plan benefit of The Platinum Card^® from American Express, baggage insurance plan coverage can be in effect for covered persons for eligible lost, damaged, or stolen baggage during their travel on a common carrier vehicle (e.g. plane, train, ship, or bus) when the Entire Fare for a ticket for the trip (one-way or round-trip) is charged to an eligible card. Coverage can be provided for up to $2,000 for checked baggage and up to a combined maximum of $3,000 for checked and carry-on baggage, in excess of coverage provided by the common carrier. The coverage is also subject to a $3,000 aggregate limit per covered trip. For New York State residents, there is a $2,000 per bag/suitcase limit for each covered person with a $10,000 aggregate maximum for all covered persons per covered trip. Eligibility and benefit level varies by card. Terms, conditions and limitations apply. Please visit americanexpress.com/benefitsguide for more details. Underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company.

For Capital One products listed on this page, some of the benefits may be provided by Visa^® or Mastercard^® and may vary by product. See the respective Guide to Benefits for details, as terms and exclusions apply.