Group travel insurance UK: one policy for up to 20 travellers, from £15.82 each

Group travel insurance is one policy covering everyone on the same trip instead of a separate policy each. For a UK group of four adults, seven nights in Spain, our August 2026 quotes start at £63.27 for the whole party, or £15.82 each.

The honest starting point is that the phrase promises something it does not deliver. We priced the same UK group at 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 and 20 travellers, and the price per head never moved: WorldSecure Basic quotes £15.82 a person whether one of you travels or ten of you do. There is no bulk discount hiding inside a standard policy. What a group booking actually buys you is one contract, one certificate and one emergency number for everybody, which matters more than most people expect when something goes wrong abroad. Everything else behaves like ordinary travel insurance, and our guide to what travel insurance covers sets out the basics.

Two numbers decide everything for a group. The first is how many people one policy will take: on the UK shelf that runs from six on Go Explore up to twenty on World Travel, and above twenty no standard policy will quote at all. The second is the age of your oldest traveller, because a shared policy is capped by whoever is eldest. Six friends aged 30 have four plans to pick from at £94.93; add one 72-year-old and the same six-person group has exactly one plan left, at £310.69. One birthday can triple the bill.

From ten travellers upwards a genuinely different product opens up: a dedicated group contract, priced at £12.04 a head at every size we tested, from ten people to a hundred. That is cheaper per person than anything on the individual shelf, and it accepts ages 0 to 99. It also cuts the medical ceiling to around £84,000, which is the trade you need to understand before you sign.

For a UK group of friends the best group travel insurance is WorldSecure Platinum at £125.61 for four people, because it is the only plan on our UK shelf whose policy wording treats fellow travellers as third parties, so a claim between group members is actually paid.

Recommended for youA. FruchardCo-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert

Our pick for a group of friends

If one of you knocks another one down a flight of stairs in Barcelona, you want that claim paid. WorldSecure Platinum is the only plan on our UK shelf where the wording says so: insured people who are not from the same family count as third parties between themselves, so the roughly £3,800,000 of personal liability works inside your own group. World Travel, which many groups default to because it takes twenty people, does the opposite: its policy wording excludes “individuals accompanying” you from the definition of a third party, so the same accident is not a liability claim at all. WorldSecure Platinum also refunds your trip price if you have to cancel for a covered reason, up to about £7,500, and it covers roughly £250,000 of emergency medical care each with no money to advance at the hospital. The catch is age: it stops at 65, so a mixed-generation party needs Safe Start, which runs to 69 and carries a higher £420,000 medical ceiling, or World Travel, which goes to 84. Take WorldSecure Basic only if everyone is under 40 and you accept there is no cancellation cover at all. From ten travellers, stop comparing these and price the group contract instead: at £12.04 a head it undercuts everything here.

A. Fruchard, Co-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert at HelloSafe

MGENWorldSecure Platinum

Included coverage

Personal liability£3,800,000

International emergency medical expenses£250,000

Trip cancellationOptional

From£125.61

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MutuaideSafe Start

Included coverage

Personal liability£3,800,000

International emergency medical expenses£420,000

Trip cancellationNot included

From£153.38

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MutuaideWorld Travel

Included coverage

Personal liability£1,700,000

International emergency medical expenses£250,000

Trip cancellation£1,300

From£207.06

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MGENWorldSecure Basic

Included coverage

Personal liability£3,800,000

International emergency medical expenses£250,000

Trip cancellationNot included

From£63.27

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Prices for a group of 4 adults aged 30, 32, 28 and 35 on one policy, 7 nights in Spain, departing from the UK. Real quotes calculated by HelloSafe, August 2026. Policies are pan-European: prices and cover amounts are shown in pounds at the live exchange rate. Your price depends on the ages, the number of travellers, the trip length and the destination. Groups of 10 or more should compare the dedicated group contract instead.

Group travel insurance costs from £15.82 per person for a week in Spain, and from £12.04 per person once your group reaches ten travellers and qualifies for a dedicated group contract. A four-person party pays £63.27 to £207.06 in total depending on the cover level.

Three things move that price and group size is not one of them. Destination is the big lever: the same four friends pay £63.27 to £207.06 for Spain but £88.22 to £414.25 for the United States, roughly double across the board. Trip length is next, with a fortnight in Thailand costing £113.15 to £276.17 for the four. Age is third, and it works by removing cheap plans from your list rather than by loading the premium.

One standard UK policy covers up to 20 travellers, on World Travel. Above 20 no standard plan will quote. From 10 travellers a dedicated group contract takes over and runs to 100 people on a single agreement.

We tested this by quoting the same trip at every party size from one person to twenty-five and reading which plans dropped out and why. The engine gives an explicit reason, so these are hard limits from the products themselves rather than estimates.

That 20-person ceiling is generous by UK standards. Post Office group cover runs to eight people on one policy, InsureandGo defines a group as three or more, and MoneySuperMarket describes the market as typically capped at ten. Staysure goes furthest on the high street at nine online and thirty by telephone. So a party of twelve to twenty, which is a normal size for a sports club or a wedding party abroad, is exactly the size most UK insurers quietly refuse online.

Between 10 and 11 travellers you can genuinely choose either route, and the choice is not obvious. The group contract is cheaper per head and accepts any age, but it caps medical cover at around £84,000 and limits the trip to 31 days. A standard policy costs more per person and imposes age limits, but gives you three to five times the medical ceiling and lets the trip run up to a year. You can price both in the comparison form and compare travel insurance for your own dates.

Group travel insurance covers the same four pillars as an individual policy, applied to every named traveller: emergency medical treatment abroad, repatriation, 24/7 assistance, and personal liability. Cancellation, baggage and travel delay depend on the plan you pick.

Emergency medical care is the reason the product exists. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) puts a broken leg in Spain at over £25,000 once evacuation is included, a quad bike accident in Greece at over £80,000, and a hospital stay for a stomach infection in the United States at over £150,000. The Association of British Insurers reports that UK insurers paid £472 million across more than 500,000 travel insurance claims in 2024, with medical expenses making up 34% of claims, up from 29% in 2023, and an average medical payout of £1,528. One member paid more than £1 million for emergency hospital treatment and repatriation from the United States.

Every plan on our UK shelf includes direct billing, which means the hospital is paid directly and nobody in the group has to put a five-figure bill on a personal credit card and wait to be reimbursed. Repatriation is covered at actual cost on all of them, with no ceiling. Those two features are what a GHIC cannot give you, and they are the ones that matter when a group is a long way from home.

The fine print of group travel insurance is where the shared-policy idea breaks down: most ceilings are per person, but cancellation is often a single shared pot, and personal liability may not cover one group member injuring another.

We read the binding policy wordings rather than the marketing sheets. Four of the eight plans a UK group can buy are underwritten by the same insurer, so our Mutuaide travel insurance review covers a lot of this ground in detail. Here is what to insist on and what to watch for.

• ✓
  Liability that works inside the group : WorldSecure Platinum's wording states that insured people who are not from the same family are third parties between themselves, so a claim between friends is payable.
• ✓
  Medical cover per person, not per policy : World Travel's product sheet confirms the medical ceiling applies per insured person, and WorldSecure Basic's terms set it per beneficiary. Assume nothing, check the wording.
• ✓
  A party-size limit above your headcount : quote your real number before you pay. Plans stop at 6, 10, 11 or 20 people, and the engine simply returns nothing above the limit.
• ✓
  An age limit above your oldest traveller : the eldest person sets the shelf for everyone. Check them first, not last.
• ✓
  Baggage stated per person : World Travel's terms give up to £840 per person for the policy duration, so a group of four carries four separate limits.

• ✕
  Liability that excludes your own party : World Travel's wording removes "individuals accompanying" the insured from the definition of a third party, so one member injuring another is not a liability claim.
• ✕
  Cancellation as one shared pot : World Travel caps trip cancellation at around £1,300 per event and per family, not per traveller. Split between four people that is far less than it looks.
• ✕
  Cancellation capped at 9 people : WorldSecure Platinum's cancellation cover applies to people registered at the same time, up to a maximum of 9, and the excess is applied across all of them.
• ✕
  A thin medical ceiling on the group contract : Multirisque and Multirisque Plus cover around £84,000 of medical care each, against £250,000 to £420,000 on the standard plans. For the United States that is not enough.
• ✕
  No liability at all on the cheaper group contract : Multirisque carries no personal liability. If you want it on a group contract you need Multirisque Plus, at roughly £420,000.
• ✕
  A 31-day cap on the group contract : the dedicated group product covers trips of 1 to 31 days only, against up to 365 days on the standard plans.

Timing matters too. World Travel, WorldSecure Basic and WorldSecure Platinum can be bought the same day you travel, while Go Explore, Go Explore +, Multirisque and Multirisque Plus need at least one day before departure. If your group wants cancellation cover, none of that helps: the cover has to be in force before the reason to cancel arises, so buy it when you book, not when you pack. Our guide on when to buy travel insurance sets out the deadlines in full.

If one person cancels, group travel insurance pays that traveller's own irrecoverable costs, not the whole booking, and the rest of the group travels on the same policy. The catch is that some plans cap the payout for the entire party rather than per head.

World Travel is the clearest example. Its terms set trip cancellation at around £1,300 per event and per family, so a single shared limit covers everyone booked together. If four of you each lose £500 of non-refundable costs, the £2,000 loss meets a £1,300 ceiling. WorldSecure Platinum works the other way and refunds the declared trip price, up to about £7,500, for the people registered at the same time as you, capped at nine people, with the excess applied across all of them.

Two practical consequences. If your group has an expensive booking, the plan whose cancellation cover is tied to the trip price beats the one with a flat ceiling, even if it costs more up front. And if one member is far more likely to drop out than the others, for example someone with an unpredictable work rota or a relative in poor health, it is worth pricing that person separately rather than letting them consume a limit the whole party shares.

Group travel insurance suits any party booking one trip together: friends, stag and hen parties, families travelling with grandparents, sports clubs, school trips, tour parties and pilgrimages. The right product depends almost entirely on your headcount and your oldest traveller.

• Stag and hen parties, 6 to 12 people : usually all under 40 and short-haul, so WorldSecure Platinum at £31.40 a head is the sweet spot. Above ten people you fall off the WorldSecure plans, so check the number before you book.
• Family groups with grandparents : the eldest traveller decides. Over 65 rules out WorldSecure Platinum, over 69 rules out Safe Start, and over 84 leaves nothing on the standard shelf.
• Sports clubs and tour parties, 10 to 100 : the dedicated group contract at £12.04 a head is the cheapest route, but check the medical ceiling against your destination and remember extreme sports are excluded.
• School and youth groups : the group contract accepts under-18s at the same flat rate, and prices a party of 20 at £240.70, but state schools should read the paragraph below first.
• Multi-generation reunions of 12 to 20 : World Travel is the only standard plan that reaches 20 people and age 84, which is why it appears on so many group quotes despite its narrower liability.

State schools and academies in England are a special case worth checking before you buy anything. The Department for Education's Risk Protection Arrangement is a government-backed alternative to commercial insurance, and its membership rules include overseas travel cover for governors, trustees, volunteers and pupils on school business outside the UK, with medical expenses up to £10,000,000 per person, baggage up to £2,000 and travel disruption up to £4,000 per person. If your school is in the scheme, a commercial group policy may be duplicating cover you already have. Independent schools, clubs and private trips are not in the scheme and do need their own policy.

No. The Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) never covers repatriation, and everyone in the group needs their own card, so it cannot replace group travel insurance. The NHS states plainly that the card is not a substitute for travel insurance.

The UK Global Health Insurance Card gives you medically necessary state healthcare in the EU on the same terms as a local resident. It does not pay for treatment in a private clinic, it does not pay for mountain or ski rescue, and it does not fly anyone home. For a group that is a serious gap, because getting one injured member back to the UK is exactly the cost that turns a bad holiday into a financial disaster. Every plan on our UK shelf covers repatriation at actual cost, with no ceiling at all.

There is also a practical problem specific to groups: the card is issued to individuals. There is no family or group version, so if two people in your party forgot to apply, the group is only as covered as its least organised member. A single policy naming everyone removes that risk in one step.

Buying group travel insurance takes a few minutes: enter every traveller, compare on ceilings rather than price, and download one certificate covering the whole party.

1. Enter your destination, your dates and every traveller's age in the comparison form at the top of this page. The ages matter more than the number of people.
2. Pick the Group travel intent so the dedicated group contract appears if your party reaches ten people.
3. Compare on the party-size limit first, then the medical ceiling, then whether personal liability covers your own group. Price last.
4. Check the cancellation line carefully: whether it is per person or a single shared pot changes what the cover is worth to a group.
5. Pay online and download one certificate listing every traveller. Share the policy number and the assistance line with everyone, as the FCDO travel insurance guidance advises.

• What is group travel insurance?

  It is a single policy covering everyone on the same trip instead of a separate policy each. All travellers are named on one contract with one certificate and one 24/7 assistance number.

• How much does group travel insurance cost in the UK?

  From £15.82 per person for a week in Spain, so £63.27 for a party of four. From ten travellers the dedicated group contract costs £12.04 per person at any size. Real HelloSafe quotes, August 2026.

• How many people can be on one travel insurance policy?

  Up to 20 on a standard UK policy, on World Travel. Other plans stop at 6, 10 or 11 people. The dedicated group contract covers 10 to 100 travellers on one agreement.

• Is group travel insurance cheaper per person?

  Not on a standard policy. We priced identical trips at 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 and 20 travellers and the price per head did not change. The only real saving is switching to the group contract at ten people, at £12.04 a head.

• How many people counts as a group?

  There is no legal definition in the UK and insurers differ. InsureandGo says three or more, Post Office covers three to eight, and our own dedicated group contract starts at ten. Below ten you simply add travellers to a standard policy.

• What happens if one person in the group cancels?

  That traveller claims their own irrecoverable costs and the others travel on as normal. Check whether the cancellation limit is per person or shared: World Travel caps it at around £1,300 per event and family, not per head.

• Does group travel insurance cover one member injuring another?

  It depends on the plan. WorldSecure Platinum’s wording treats insured people from different families as third parties between themselves, so it is covered. World Travel excludes people accompanying you from the definition of a third party, so it is not.

• Can a group of mixed ages share one policy?

  Yes, but the oldest traveller sets the limit for everyone. WorldSecure Platinum stops at 65, Safe Start at 69 and World Travel at 84. The dedicated group contract accepts ages 0 to 99, which is why mixed-age groups of ten or more should price it.

• Are children and under-18s covered on a group policy?

  Yes. Children are named on the same contract as the adults, and on the dedicated group contract they are priced at the same flat £12.04 a head, which is why a school party of 20 quotes at £240.70.

• Is a GHIC enough for a group trip?

  No. The NHS states the GHIC is not a substitute for travel insurance and it never covers repatriation costs. It is also issued per person, so there is no group version.

• When should a group buy its travel insurance?

  When you book, not before you fly. Most of our UK plans can be bought the same day you travel, but cancellation cover only works if it is in force before the reason to cancel arises.

• Does group travel insurance cover extreme sports?

  Only WorldSecure Platinum includes extreme sports on our UK shelf. Both dedicated group contracts exclude them, so a sports club or ski group needs to check this before choosing the cheaper group route.