Road trip insurance
Leave your worries behind and hit the road
Nothing feels more liberating than hitting the great open highway for a road trip. From the freedom to travel at your own pace to the opportunity to see a region or destination up close and personal, road trips offer travelers numerous benefits.
What does road trip travel insurance cover?
- Whether you’re road tripping through a foreign country, or heading out on a domestic road trip, it’s important to purchase road trip insurance to make sure you’re covered. Road trip travel insurance can prove necessary on a road trip for all kinds of reasons, from rental car damage or a car accident, to roadside assistance and medical emergencies
- It also offers standard travel insurance benefits including trip cancellation, trip interruption, and trip delay. These can be helpful if something doesn’t go according to plan — such as car trouble or a medical emergency — and you need to recoup your prepaid trip costs. Road trip travel insurance can also help reimburse you for any additional travel costs that come as a result of a delayed or interrupted road trip
Top road trip destinations
Route 66, USA
Known as the quintessential road trip, it doesn’t get more American than Route 66, stretching further than 2,000 miles and crossing through eight US states
Pacific Coast Highway, California
From San Diego to Los Angeles, up to Big Sur and San Francisco, ‘the PCH’ as Californians call it, showcases the best of everything the state has to offer.
Great Ocean Road, Australia
Winding across the state of Victoria for around 150 miles, this road trip has it all, from spectacular coastlines to rainforest and ancient rock formations
Atlantic Ocean Road, Norway
Offering stunning coastal landscape and sea views, the Atlantic Ocean Road is an impressive feat of engineering with eight bridges which connect Averøy to the Norwegian mainland across multiple islands
What is not covered by road trip insurance?
Certain exclusions can apply to road trip travel insurance. These may include medical care for any preexisting conditions you had before the trip, any incident or car accident that occurred as a result of criminal acts or driving under the influence, and specialist vehicles not included in your policy, such as RVs or high performance cars.
Good to know
What kind of insurance should I purchase for a road trip?
You can either purchase a road trip-specific policy, or purchase a comprehensive travel insurance policy that offers all the benefits you may need. Make sure you don’t overspend, however, on benefits such as flight cancellation that you are unlikely to need if you’re going on a domestic road trip.
Will my regular car insurance cover me while traveling?
Check your policy, as it may only cover damage to the property of other drivers, or their injuries, so it’s still advisable to purchase an additional policy for your road trip. Road trips can incur more risk than your regular day-to-day driving, especially as you’re traveling on unfamiliar roads and routes in a rental car.
Consider adding rental vehicle damage coverage to your road trip travel insurance plan. Oftentimes, the coverage is primary, so if you damage the rental vehicle, you may not need to file a claim with your own auto insurance. Your car insurance also won’t cover trip interruption expenses in case you have to return home early.
What do I do if I get into a car accident in my rental car?
You’ll need to contact law enforcement to report the accident and get some proof of the incident, followed by your insurance company and the rental car company. Make sure you are familiar with your policy details so you know all the required documentation to gather and the process to follow in order to make a claim.
Will my regular health insurance provide coverage for a medical emergency on a road trip?
It depends, but oftentimes it does not. If your road trip is overseas, then it’s possible that your health insurance company won’t cover costs incurred abroad. Furthermore, if you’re traveling domestically, some health insurance companies charge you additional fees and costs for care that’s received out of your usual network. So it’s best to purchase travel insurance that provides emergency medical coverage for anything that may go wrong on your road trip. The worst-case scenario is that you are seriously injured in an auto accident overseas and need to be transported to a medical facility, or even to your home. These expenses can easily run up to $100,000 or more. That’s why emergency medical evacuation coverage from a travel insurance policy is so important.
What if I can't complete my road trip? Will I be covered?
If something happens on the road that means you have to cut your trip short, then trip interruption coverage can help you recoup any prepaid trip costs. It can also help reimburse you for any additional travel costs to get you back home.
