Direct Line Travel Insurance Review (2026): Why You Can No Longer Buy It, and What Your Policy Still Covers

You cannot buy Direct Line travel insurance in 2026. Direct Line stopped selling new travel policies and its own travel insurance page now reads "So long, farewell... We're no longer offering new travel insurance policies", pointing visitors to Aviva instead. If you hold a live policy it still works, and this page explains exactly what it covers.

That single fact changes what this review is for. Most pages ranking for this brand still describe a product you can buy, quote limits from it and invite you to get a price. We checked directline.com on 31 August 2026 and there is no quote journey left to complete. Direct Line paused travel sales in March 2020 and never restarted them, while continuing to sell car, home and pet insurance.

The corporate picture behind that matters too. Aviva completed its acquisition of Direct Line Group on 1 July 2025, and Direct Line now carries a notice that it is proposing to transfer insurance business from U K Insurance Limited, the entity that underwrites these travel policies, to Aviva Insurance Limited. So the brand on your certificate and the insurer standing behind it may not stay the same.

Read as a contract rather than as a brand, the policy Direct Line left behind is genuinely strong in places. Emergency medical cover runs to £10,000,000 and personal liability to £2,000,000, both well above what most of the market carries. The catch is that baggage was never included: personal belongings cover was an optional extra you had to pay for on top.

What Direct Line travel insurance does well

• ✓
  Exceptional emergency medical cover : up to £10,000,000 abroad including repatriation, which is far beyond any realistic hospital and air ambulance bill.
• ✓
  High personal liability : £2,000,000, at the top of what UK travel policies carry.
• ✓
  Cancellation included as standard : up to £5,000 per person, with a reduced £10 excess where you are claiming for a deposit only.
• ✓
  Generous delay and missed departure cover : £200 for costs plus £500 for unused accommodation and travel on a delay, and £600 for a missed international departure.
• ✓
  End supplier failure covered : up to £5,000 if a supplier goes bust, which many policies exclude entirely.
• ✓
  A wide list of sports included free : the policy covers a long list of activities at no extra premium, provided you use the recommended safety equipment and book through a licenced operator.
• ✓
  Legal costs up to £50,000 : a full legal expenses section rather than a token limit.

Where Direct Line travel insurance falls short

• ✕
  You cannot buy it : new sales are closed, so nothing here helps a traveller who needs cover for a trip they are booking now.
• ✕
  Baggage was never included : personal belongings cover was an optional extra, and without it a lost suitcase is not covered at all.
• ✕
  Low baggage limits even when bought : £1,500 in total, £300 for any single item, £300 for all valuables and £100 for consumables.
• ✕
  The annual policy stopped at 74 : the binding product information document limits annual multi-trip cover to travellers aged 74 and under.
• ✕
  Trip length caps tighten with age : 90 days per trip, falling to 42 days for travellers aged 60 and over, and 42 days per trip on any annual policy.
• ✕
  Pre-existing conditions need written agreement : a condition you did not declare and have not had accepted in writing is excluded.
• ✕
  The cooling-off refund has a hole in it : Direct Line states it will not refund any premium on single trip cover bought for a period of less than one month, which is most holidays.

No. Direct Line travel insurance is closed to new customers, and there is no quote form, no price and no tier to choose on directline.com. The company's travel page states plainly that it is no longer offering new travel insurance policies and directs visitors to Aviva's travel insurance instead.

This is the single most important thing to know, and it is why the rest of the internet's Direct Line reviews are misleading. A page that walks you through choosing between cover levels is describing a purchase you cannot make. What follows below is written for the two people who actually land here: someone holding a live policy, and someone who assumed they could renew and now needs a replacement.

Direct Line travel insurance covers emergency medical treatment and repatriation up to £10,000,000, cancellation or cutting your trip short up to £5,000, personal liability up to £2,000,000 and legal costs up to £50,000, with baggage available only as a paid optional extra.

The figures below come from Direct Line's own insurance product information documents and its policy booklet, not from a comparison site's summary. Where the public documents do not state a figure, the table says so rather than guessing.

Sources: Direct Line single trip and annual multi-trip insurance product information documents and travel insurance policy booklet (directline.com, downloaded 31 August 2026); HelloSafe live quotes captured 31 August 2026 for a UK resident.

The honest reading is that Direct Line wins most of this table on paper. A £10,000,000 medical limit is enormous, and it is worth saying that it is also far more than anyone realistically uses: emergency treatment plus an air ambulance home from Europe very rarely passes six figures, as our breakdown of how much a hospital bed costs abroad shows. A plan carrying about £435,468 is already past any realistic bill. But higher is higher, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

The place Direct Line genuinely loses is baggage, and it loses on structure rather than on numbers. Personal belongings cover was optional, so a Direct Line customer who declined it has no baggage cover at all. Every plan in our UK results includes it as standard. If you are comparing an old Direct Line schedule against a new quote, check whether you actually bought that add-on before you conclude the new policy is worse.

Direct Line travel insurance excludes undeclared pre-existing medical conditions, trips that do not start and finish in the United Kingdom, travel to anywhere the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against all travel, and a long named list of sports and activities.

• ✕
  Undeclared pre-existing conditions : any claim arising from a condition you had not told Direct Line about and had not been accepted in writing.
• ✕
  Cancelling because of a relative's illness in defined cases : where a close relative or travelling companion has been an in-patient, been diagnosed with cancer or been given a terminal prognosis in the last 12 months.
• ✕
  Travelling against medical advice : or travelling specifically to obtain medical treatment.
• ✕
  Costs recoverable elsewhere : from your tour operator, an ATOL protection, or the card issuer you booked with.
• ✕
  Trips outside the policy dates : the trip must start and finish at your UK home address during the period of insurance.
• ✕
  UK trips without paid accommodation : a domestic trip is only covered where you paid for two or more consecutive nights in commercial accommodation.
• ✕
  Motorcycles and quad bikes : riding or being a passenger on any motorcycle or moped above 125cc, a quad bike or any all-terrain vehicle.
• ✕
  A named list of activities : including bungee jumping, canyoning, caving, rock climbing, paragliding, parachuting, kite surfing, zip lining, shark diving, scuba diving beyond 18 metres, and trekking from 3,001 metres and above.
• ✕
  Some winter sports even with the add-on : heli skiing, ski jumping, ice hockey and off-piste skiing without a guide are excluded outright.
• ✕
  Any activity as the sole purpose of the trip : unless it is winter sports and you paid the winter sports premium.
• ✕
  Not wanting to travel : a change of mind is not a covered cancellation reason.

Two of these deserve emphasis because they catch people who think they are covered. The first is the 3,001 metre trekking limit: a walking holiday in the Alps or a Kilimanjaro attempt sits outside the policy, and altitude is measured rather than judged. The second is that a long list of activities is covered but with no personal liability, including jet skiing, go-karting up to 125cc and sailing within 12 nautical miles, so an accident where you injure someone else is on you.

The pre-existing conditions rule is the exclusion that costs people the most money, and it works the same way at every medically underwritten UK insurer. Our guide to travel insurance with a pre-existing medical condition sets out where declaring and where non-screening policies each make sense.

The Direct Line travel insurance excess is £75 on a single trip policy and £50 on an annual multi-trip policy, applied to each insured person and each event that leads to a claim. A deposit-only cancellation claim carries a reduced £10 excess.

The phrase that matters is "each insured person and each event". If a family of four are all affected by the same incident, the excess is charged per person, not once for the claim. That is the less generous of the two models used in the UK market, and it quietly decides whether a small claim is worth submitting at all.

• ✓
  A £300 baggage claim pays £225 : on a single trip policy, after the £75 excess, assuming you bought the optional personal belongings cover.
• ✓
  A £200 delay claim is worth £125 : which is why the delay section is more useful on a long disruption than a short one.
• ✓
  A deposit-only cancellation claim costs you £10 : Direct Line applies a reduced excess where you are claiming a deposit rather than the whole trip.
• ✓
  Hospital benefit carries no excess : the policy booklet sets the hospital benefit excess to none.
• ✓
  Check the schedule, not your memory : the excess printed on your policy schedule is the figure that applies.

Direct Line travel insurance has no price in 2026, because you cannot buy it. There is no tariff, no worked example and no quote journey left on directline.com, so no honest figure exists to quote and this page does not invent one.

What we can show is exactly what the same trip costs through our own comparator, captured the same day, so a Direct Line customer looking for a replacement has a real number to work with. Only the right-hand columns below are captured quotes. The Direct Line column is deliberately empty.

Two things in that table are worth stating plainly. The first is that replacement cover is cheap: £15.81 buys a week in Spain with about £261,281 of medical cover, and £31.39 buys the closest thing to Direct Line's overall package including baggage as standard.

The second is the honest limitation, and it is a real one. None of these policies covers trip cancellation for a UK resident. When we asked our comparator for cancellation cover on this trip it returned no policy at all, and we tested four different trips and ages to be sure. Direct Line included £5,000 of cancellation cover as standard. If cancellation is the reason you bought Direct Line, nothing in our UK results replaces it, and you should read our guide to travel cancellation insurance and shop that guarantee specifically.

Direct Line still handles claims on live and recently expired travel policies, online through its claims hub or by phone on 01243 976255, with a separate 24 hour line for medical emergencies happening abroad.

1. In a medical emergency abroad, call before you are treated. The 24 hour assistance line is +44 1252 740 098, or 01252 740 098 from the UK, quoting reference IGCS 1482. Calling first is what allows the hospital to be settled directly instead of leaving you to pay and reclaim.
2. For everything else, start the claim online. Direct Line states this is usually quicker than calling, through its travel claims hub at directlinetravel.myclaimshub.co.uk.
3. Have your policy number and trip details ready. Direct Line asks for the policy number, details about the trip, who is claiming and what happened.
4. Report theft or loss within 24 hours. The policy booklet requires any loss or theft of personal belongings to be reported to the police or your transport provider within 24 hours of discovery, plus a Property Irregularity Report if it happened in an airline's care.
5. Or call if you would rather speak to someone. 01243 976255, Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, closed at weekends, and 9am to 2pm on bank holidays.

One practical point specific to a withdrawn product: keep your policy booklet and schedule. With no renewal journey and no product page selling the cover any more, the documents you were sent are the clearest record of what you bought, including whether you took the optional personal belongings and winter sports sections.

Direct Line's Trustpilot presence covers the whole company rather than travel insurance specifically, so there is no travel-only score we are willing to quote as a rating for this product. The themes below are drawn from published customer reviews and are reported as sentiment, not as measured fact.

The praise clusters around straightforward claims.

• Simple, well documented claims settled quickly, such as a medical bill abroad or a damaged item with receipts.
• An easy website and clear documentation, a long-standing strength of the brand.
• Helpful handling once the assistance line was engaged early in a medical incident.

The complaints cluster just as tightly, and two of them are structural rather than anecdotal.

• Cancellation claims declined where the insurer considered the situation foreseeable, or where airline confirmations and medical certificates were incomplete.
• Frustration at auto-renewal pricing on Direct Line policies generally, with customers reporting they found equivalent cover cheaper elsewhere.
• Confusion about the withdrawal itself, where customers expected to renew a travel policy and found no renewal available.

We are deliberately not attaching a numerical customer score to this product. A group-wide rating dominated by motor and home policies tells you very little about how a travel claim will be handled, and presenting it as a travel insurance score would be misleading.

Direct Line no longer runs a travel sales line, because there is nothing to sell. The numbers that still matter are the claims line and the 24 hour emergency medical assistance line.

You can cancel a Direct Line travel insurance policy at any time by calling 0345 246 0415 or writing to Direct Line. Cancel before the policy starts, or within 14 days of the start date or of receiving your documents, whichever is later, and Direct Line returns your premium in full.

There is one important exception written into the policy booklet, and it is easy to miss. Direct Line states it will not refund any premium if you have single trip cover for a period of less than one month. Since most single trips are shorter than a month, the 14 day cooling-off refund does not apply to the majority of single trip policies it sold.

• Can you still buy Direct Line travel insurance?

  No. Direct Line no longer offers new travel insurance policies. Its travel page states “So long, farewell… We’re no longer offering new travel insurance policies” and directs visitors to Aviva’s travel insurance instead. Direct Line paused travel sales in March 2020 and never restarted them, while continuing to sell car, home and pet insurance.

• Is my existing Direct Line travel insurance policy still valid?

  Yes. If you bought a policy before sales closed, it remains in force on the terms in your policy booklet until it expires, and Direct Line still handles claims on it. What you cannot do is renew it, so if you hold an annual multi-trip policy you need replacement cover in place before the expiry date.

• What does Direct Line travel insurance cover?

  Emergency medical expenses abroad including repatriation up to £10,000,000, cancellation or cutting your trip short up to £5,000, personal liability up to £2,000,000, legal costs up to £50,000, missed international departure up to £600, delayed departure up to £200 plus £500 for unused accommodation, and end supplier failure up to £5,000. Baggage was not included as standard.

• Does Direct Line travel insurance cover baggage?

  Only if you paid for it. Personal belongings cover was an optional section costing an additional premium, giving up to £1,500 towards belongings with a £300 limit per single item, a £300 valuables limit and a £100 consumable items limit. If you did not buy that option, a lost or stolen suitcase is not covered at all. Check your schedule.

• What is the excess on Direct Line travel insurance?

  £75 on a single trip policy and £50 on an annual multi-trip policy, applied to each insured person and each event that leads to a claim. A cancellation claim for a deposit only carries a reduced £10 excess, and the hospital benefit section carries no excess.

• What is the age limit on Direct Line travel insurance?

  The annual multi-trip product was only available to travellers aged 74 and under, according to its binding insurance product information document. Single trip cover had no upper age limit stated in the same document, but trip length was cut from 90 days to 42 days per trip for travellers aged 60 and over.

• How long can a Direct Line trip be?

  On a single trip policy, up to 90 days, reduced to 42 days per trip for travellers aged 60 and over. On an annual multi-trip policy, 42 days per trip. Trips must start and finish in the United Kingdom, and a trip that begins before your policy ends but finishes after it ends is not covered at all.

• Does Direct Line travel insurance cover pre-existing medical conditions?

  Only where you declared the condition and Direct Line agreed in writing to cover it. Any claim resulting from a pre-existing medical condition that was not declared and accepted is excluded. The policy also excludes claims for cancelling because of a close relative or travelling companion who has been an in-patient, diagnosed with cancer or given a terminal prognosis in the last 12 months.

• Does Direct Line travel insurance cover winter sports and adventure activities?

  Winter sports needed the optional winter sports section, which added cover for lost ski pack up to £250 per week, equipment up to £500, piste closure at £20 a day up to £200 and £200 for avalanche delay. Even with it, heli skiing, ski jumping, ice hockey and off-piste skiing without a guide are excluded. Bungee jumping, canyoning, rock climbing, paragliding, scuba diving beyond 18 metres and trekking from 3,001 metres are excluded outright.

• How much did Direct Line travel insurance cost?

  There is no published price and no quote journey left, so no honest figure exists. For comparison, our own comparator returned £15.81 for a UK resident aged 35 on a 7 day trip to Spain on 31 August 2026, rising to £31.39 for the plan closest to Direct Line’s overall cover including baggage as standard.

• Who underwrites Direct Line travel insurance?

  U K Insurance Limited, authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority under registration number 202810. Aviva completed its acquisition of Direct Line Group on 1 July 2025, and Direct Line has since notified customers of a proposal to transfer insurance business from U K Insurance Limited to Aviva Insurance Limited.

• What is the best alternative to Direct Line travel insurance?

  For a straightforward trip, WorldSecure Platinum at £31.39 is the closest match to what Direct Line offered: about £261,281 of medical cover, about £3,919,212 of personal liability and baggage included as standard rather than as a paid extra. The one thing it does not replace is cancellation cover, which Direct Line included at £5,000 and which our comparator did not return for any UK resident.

The best alternative to Direct Line travel insurance depends on which part of it you were relying on. If it was the medical cover and the general package, a replacement costs from £15.81 for a week in Spain. If it was the £5,000 of cancellation cover, no policy in our UK results replaces it and you need to shop that guarantee on its own.

Recommended for youA. Fruchard · Co-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert

Which policy we would actually put in front of a Direct Line customer

If you are replacing a standard Direct Line single trip policy, WorldSecure Platinum is the one to look at first. You get emergency hospital treatment abroad with nothing to pay up front, repatriation organised and paid at actual cost, about £261,281 of medical cover, about £3,919,212 of personal liability and baggage cover included as standard. That last point is the real upgrade: Direct Line made you pay extra for baggage and capped it at £1,500, so a customer who declined the option had no baggage cover at all.

If your priority is the biggest possible medical ceiling, Go Explore + carries about £435,468, at a higher price than WorldSecure Platinum. And if you are over 65, the WorldSecure plans stop accepting you, so World Travel becomes the plan to look at, quoting all the way to 84 where Direct Line’s annual policy stopped at 74.

Now the part we are not going to sell around. Direct Line’s £10,000,000 medical limit is higher than anything we quote, its travel delay and missed departure cover is more generous, and it included £5,000 of cancellation cover as standard. When we asked our comparator for cancellation cover for a UK resident it returned no policy at all, on four different trips and ages. If cancellation was why you bought Direct Line, a cheaper policy here is not a comparable one, and you should treat that as a gap to fill rather than a saving to bank.

WorldSecure PlatinumInsured by MGEN

From£31.39

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses£250,000

Baggage & personal belongings£1,700

Personal liability£3,800,000

Direct billingIncluded

See the 17 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Safe StartInsured by Mutuaide

From£38.32

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses£420,000

Baggage & personal belongings£1,700

Personal liability£3,800,000

Direct billingIncluded

See the 17 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Go Explore +Insured by MGEN

From£62.27

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses£420,000

Baggage & personal belongings£420

Personal liability£1,300,000

Direct billingIncluded

See the 17 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Prices for 1 traveller aged 35, 7 days in Spain, departing from the United Kingdom, quoted on 31 August 2026 for a 5 October 2026 departure. Baggage cover is included as standard on these plans. On Direct Line it was an optional extra you had to pay for. None of these plans covers trip cancellation for a UK resident: our comparator returned no policy at all when cancellation cover was requested. Direct Line included £5,000 of cancellation cover as standard. Policies are pan-European: prices and cover limits are shown in pounds, converted at the live exchange rate.

Direct Line is not the only UK brand worth checking before you rebuy. Our review of Saga travel insurance covers the strongest option for older travellers, AllClear travel insurance is the one to read if you have a medical condition to declare, and Avanti travel insurance sits in the same mid-market space Direct Line occupied. If you would rather start from your own trip than from a brand, run it through our travel insurance comparison and read the limits before the price. Travellers heading into Europe should also carry a European Health Insurance Card, and anyone who took two or more trips a year on the old Direct Line annual policy should price an annual multi-trip travel insurance replacement before the expiry date.

Last updated: 31 August 2026. Direct Line figures taken from its single trip and annual multi-trip insurance product information documents and its travel insurance policy booklet, downloaded from directline.com on that date, and from directline.com page content checked the same day. HelloSafe prices are live quotes captured the same day for a UK resident, shown in pounds.