New York, June 30, 2026. HelloSafe publishes the first edition of its Travel Insurance Market Report. The global travel insurance market was worth an estimated $24 to 27 billion in 2024, and the United States is its single largest market, at $5.56 billion, roughly a fifth of the world. This report opens on that scale, then works down: how the market breaks up, who carries the risk, how it is sold, and where the premium dollar goes.
The American signature runs against European intuition. Americans do not insure themselves first, they insure their trip: trip cancellation and interruption account for 94.7% of premiums, on prepaid, often expensive vacations. The US market has grown from $810 million in 2002 to $5.56 billion in 2024, up 46% since 2019, and it is the most measured market in the world.
The report follows the money and maps the value chain, from the insurers who hold the risk to the managers, assistance companies and distributors who build and sell the cover. It keeps one rule: every figure is tagged by reliability, from primary source to order of magnitude. Where public data stops, HelloSafe relies on its own measurement, a multi-market quote engine and the Atlas distribution platform.
A market measured in tens of billions
First, the size. The global travel insurance market was worth an estimated $24 to 27 billion in premiums in 2024, and no single market comes close to the United States.
At $5.56 billion, the US is roughly a fifth of the world market on its own, more than twice the size of China, the next largest. It has grown almost without pause since 2002, from $810 million to $5.56 billion, up 46% in the last five years alone. The rest of this report works down from that number: how the market divides, who carries the risk, how it is sold, and how profitable it is.
The growth is not done. Market research projects the sector to expand by around 18% a year through the end of the decade, which would put the global market on track to more than double by the early 2030s. Four rational forces underpin that pace. First, trip costs keep rising, and because a policy is priced as a share of trip value, premiums climb with them. Second, insurance is increasingly embedded straight into the booking, where 100% of the largest airlines now offer it and attach rates rise with every checkout. Third, penetration still has wide headroom: only about 40% of Americans insure their trips, against 78% of Britons, so each point gained widens the market. Fourth, medical-cost inflation abroad and spreading visa mandates push travelers toward higher, and pricier, medical limits. Even discounting the most bullish models, the direction is a market growing several times faster than travel volume itself.
Global total is a market-research estimate (Allied Market Research $23.8B, Grand View $27.05B for 2024); the per-market bars blend national associations and market research, scopes harmonized for comparison. The ~18%-a-year outlook is a market-research projection (Allied models an 18.4% CAGR to 2034), not a HelloSafe forecast.
In America, you insure the trip, not the traveler
The American product is built around one risk: losing the money sunk into a non-refundable trip.
Trip cancellation and interruption make up 94.7% of premiums, and the total trip value protected climbed to $68 billion in 2024, from $49 billion in 2019. Medical and assistance, the European reflex, come second here. The market protected 86.9 million travelers through 54.9 million plans in 2024.
How many travelers actually insure
The gaps between countries are wide, and they map the sector's room to grow.
Only about 40% of Americans insure their trips, below the world average of 45% and far below the United Kingdom (78%) or Sweden (88%). Domestic health coverage blurs the message at home, even though it rarely follows the traveler abroad. The average US policy runs about $307. Every point of penetration gained is a market that widens.
The value chain: who does what
Behind a single travel insurance policy stand four different businesses. Confusing them is the most common mistake made about this market.
The brand a traveler sees, an airline, an OTA, a bank, a comparison site, is almost never the company carrying the risk. The risk sits with an insurer; between the two sit the managers who build and run the product and the assistance companies who answer the phone at 2 a.m. abroad. Reading the market means keeping these layers apart.
| Layer | What they do | Who they are |
|---|---|---|
| Risk carriers (insurers) | Hold the risk on their balance sheet and pay the claims | Allianz, AXA, Zurich, AIG, Generali, Chubb, Munich Re / Great Lakes |
| Managers and MGAs | Design, price and administer the product on a carrier's paper, without carrying the risk | Cover-More, Trawick, IMG, Seven Corners, Tin Leg, battleface |
| Assistance companies | Run the 24/7 medical, evacuation and repatriation network and handle claims | Europ Assistance, Allianz Partners, AXA Partners, Global Excel, Assist Card, International SOS |
| Distributors | Sell the cover to the traveler, usually at the point of booking | OTAs, airlines, travel agencies, banks and cards, comparison sites, embedded insurtech |
A managing general agent (MGA) designs, prices and administers a program on an insurer's paper without holding the risk; an assistance company runs the medical and repatriation network; a third-party administrator handles claims. One group can play several roles at once.
The insurers and assistance behind the brands
The risk concentrates in a short list of global carriers and assistance groups, and it is consolidating fast.
The biggest move of the year was consolidation. In December 2024 Zurich bought AIG's global personal travel business, Travel Guard, for about $600 million plus an earn-out, folding it into Zurich Cover-More, which now serves more than 20 million customers a year through 200-plus partners. Allianz Partners remains the single largest travel underwriter by volume and, rare among the groups, discloses a travel-specific line: about $3.5 billion in 2024, inside roughly $11 billion of total revenue, with its assistance and mobility arm alone booking about $3.6 billion.
On the assistance side, a handful of networks answer for most of the world's travelers: Europ Assistance (Generali), Allianz Partners, AXA Partners, Global Excel, Assist Card and International SOS. Most consumer brands carry none of this themselves; they rent a balance sheet, as the table below shows.
| Consumer brand | Who underwrites it | Market |
|---|---|---|
| American Express card travel | New Hampshire Insurance Co (AIG) | United States |
| Travel Insured International | US Fire Insurance (Crum & Forster) | United States |
| Post Office (UK) | Great Lakes (Munich Re) | United Kingdom |
| Nationwide FlexPlus | Aviva | United Kingdom |
Named-carrier links are verified from issuer and underwriter disclosures.
How Americans buy: the channels are going digital
Online travel agencies and airlines lead distribution. Behind them, the digital channels are pulling the market.
Between 2022 and 2024, online aggregators grew 49.4% and direct-to-consumer 46.6%, far faster than traditional agents (up 22.8% to $762.8 million, the only public per-channel dollar figure). At checkout, attach rates reach 18 to 24% on OTAs and 15 to 19% on airlines (Mordor Intelligence).
The embedded wave
The fastest shift is happening at the point of sale, where insurance is becoming a feature of the booking rather than a separate product.
According to the Ancileo benchmark, 100% of the forty largest airlines worldwide offered travel insurance in 2025, up from 70% in 2022, and 90% now build it straight into the booking flow. The mechanics are maturing too: 58% present insurance as an active opt-in, 39% as a forced choice, and only 3% as a pre-ticked box, a practice fading under regulatory pressure.
Where the premium dollar goes
One question the market avoids: of every dollar of premium, how much comes back to the traveler? The US does not publish it. Europe does, and the answer reframes the market.
The clearest read is the European regulator's. Of every premium dollar, EIOPA's decomposition returns about 40% in claims to travelers, 24% in commission to whoever sold the policy, 20% in the insurer's own costs, and 15% in net underwriting profit. Travel pays out less in claims than general non-life insurance (around 53%), yet nets a higher margin (15% versus 10%). It is, structurally, one of the most profitable products a seller can attach to a booking.
Britain's regulator makes it starker. Under the FCA's 2024 value-measures data, single-trip travel cover sold as an add-on paid out just 23.6% of premium in claims, the lowest of any general-insurance line, against 54.4% for motor. The ABI reports its members paid about $600 million across more than 500,000 travel claims in 2024; medical was a third of claims by count but 55% by value, at an average of roughly $1,950 a claim.
The United States publishes none of this. Travel is filed under "inland marine," the model law sets no minimum loss ratio, and no regulator isolates a travel combined ratio. The world's largest market is also its most opaque on the economics, which is exactly where HelloSafe's own measurement comes in.
EIOPA figures are regulator-grade EU averages (2017 data, published 2019), shown as shares of premium; they set the order of magnitude, not a US-specific split. Comparison and add-on channels ran far higher on commission, averaging 35% and reaching 89%. No travel-isolated loss ratio is published in the US.
The commission engine
Why does everyone want to sell travel insurance? Because it pays a margin few products offer.
US per-channel commissions stay private, set in confidential distribution agreements, but the structure is clear. Industry estimates put traditional agents at 20 to 37% of the premium, online platforms at 20 to 40%, full-service airlines near 24% and low-cost carriers often above 50%. Direct insurers keep that margin in-house. This is why the OTA, the airline and the card all fight for the attach: it is high-margin ancillary revenue.
European (EIOPA) and UK (FCA) figures are regulator-grade; the per-channel bands are international industry estimates, not verified US figures.
A consolidating, concentrated market
Behind the long tail of brands, ownership is concentrating.
Where an independent source exists, concentration is high: Spain's top-five carriers hold 67% of premiums and the top ten 93%. Consolidation is the direction of travel, from Zurich's purchase of Travel Guard to nib's full exit from Australian and New Zealand travel underwriting, with World Nomads sold to IMG. A widely-cited figure putting the US top-five near 40% of premiums is vendor-only and not carried here as fact.
Concentration figures: Spain is DBK Observatorio (market research); the US ~40% top-five figure is a single vendor estimate with a circularity risk, flagged and not headlined.
The 15 markets, and the US on top
Size, share of travelers insured, leading channel and dominant product. The US highlighted as the reference.
| Market | Size | Travelers insured | Top channel | Dominant product |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $5.56B | ~40 % | OTAs and airlines | Trip cancellation |
| China | $2.5B | ~20 % | OTAs and super-apps | Medical and micro-cover |
| United Kingdom | $2.0B | ~75 % | Comparison sites | Medical and assistance |
| Japan | $1.7B | ~50 % | Agencies and counters | Medical and assistance |
| Australia | $1.5B | 86 % | Direct and comparison | Medical and assistance |
| India | $1.3B | ~25 % | Brokers and bancassurance | Medical (visa) |
| South Korea | $0.9B | ~60 % | Insurtech (Kakao Pay) | Medical and assistance |
| Germany | $0.85B | ~54 % | Brokers and agencies | Cancellation |
| Italy | $0.77B | ~30 % | Agencies | Medical and assistance |
| Mexico | $0.65B | ~25 % | Agents and brokers | Medical and assistance |
| UAE | $0.57B | ~70 % | Brokers and banks | Medical (visa) |
| Brazil | $0.48B | ~30 % | OTAs and banks | Medical and assistance |
| Netherlands | $0.47B | ~80 % | Direct insurers | Medical (annual policy) |
| Spain | $0.32B | ~24 % | OTAs and embedded | Medical and assistance |
| Switzerland | $0.31B | ~75 % | Cards and auto clubs | Cancellation and assistance |
| Singapore | $0.25B | ~70 % | Direct insurers | Medical and assistance |
Sources: national associations and market research, 2024. Scopes harmonized for comparison.
The rules of the game
Regulation shapes both what gets sold and what gets disclosed, and the contrast across markets is sharp.
In the United States, travel insurance runs under the NAIC's Travel Insurance Model Act (#632), which created a light-touch "limited lines" travel license and a registered "travel retailer" role so agencies and OTAs can sell at the point of booking. The flip side is opacity: travel is filed under inland marine, and no minimum loss ratio applies, so the economics stay hidden.
Europe runs the opposite way. Under the Insurance Distribution Directive, every distributor including a travel agency must register, and both EIOPA and the UK's FCA have publicly scrutinized how little add-on travel cover pays out. The disclosure gap between the two blocs is itself one of the report's findings.
What HelloSafe measures
The map has clear blank spots, and they are the same everywhere: the numbers distribution keeps to itself.
No regulator publishes a US travel loss ratio, a per-channel commission, or a real attach rate; market-size estimates diverge by 40% between research houses. That private detail, the price actually paid by channel, the commission, the conversion, is exactly what HelloSafe measures. Its quote engine compares, for the same traveler, the price of a cover by the channel that sells it; its Atlas platform observes real conversion and commission by actor family. Edition after edition, market by market, the report will make public what distribution keeps to itself.
In the United States, travel insurance is sold at the checkout, the moment a trip is booked. The product follows: you insure the money you put down, not your health. Mapping who distributes, who underwrites, and where the premium dollar really goes is how the market sells better, and fairer.
The Travel Insurance Market Report is an annual HelloSafe publication. The 2026 edition opens with the United States and places it among the world's largest markets; future editions will deepen each market and refine the measures of price, attach, commission and claims economics.
Full methodology, primary sources and reliability levels are available on request from the press team.
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About HelloSafe
HelloSafe is an independent travel insurance comparison and distribution platform. It lets travel players (agencies, creators, platforms and fintechs) offer travel insurance to their customers without holding an insurance license. You are free to reuse this description in your articles.