Was Discovery review: unlimited medical as standard, and six familiar covers that are optional extras
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E. de FeydeauProduct & Customer Experience LeadLast updated: October 8, 2026Is the Discovery plan a whole travel insurance policy, or four covers and a shopping list?
Both, and telling the two apart is the whole point of this Was Discovery travel insurance review. Four covers sit in every policy, led by unlimited emergency medical. Ten more, including cancellation, luggage and personal liability, exist only if you tick them and pay for them.
Every figure on this page is in Australian dollars, because the policy is issued in Australia to Australian residents and states its limits in Australian currency. The document we read is the Combined Product Disclosure Statement and Financial Services Guide, reference BF1/INT/090925, effective 9 September 2025, 37 pages, read in full on 12 September 2026. It is the same file attached to this offer in our own comparator, so nothing here comes from a marketing summary.
We score Discovery 3.5 out of 5. The standard half of the plan is genuinely strong. Emergency medical and repatriation are unlimited for up to 12 months of treatment, there is no reduced ceiling for the United States and no reduced ceiling for older travellers, and most adventurous activities are inside the plan rather than sold back to you. What costs it points is that the half most buyers picture when they say travel insurance, cancellation, luggage, liability and delay, is optional; that each of those limits is a figure you select rather than a figure you receive; and that the document disagrees with itself about how high you are allowed to walk.
One naming point before the detail, because it decides who owes you money. Was Insurance is the name on our listing. The name on the policy document is battleface, and battleface is itself only the underwriting agent. The company carrying the risk is Pacific International Insurance Pty Ltd, ABN 83 169 311 193, AFSL 523921, named on pages 6, 10, 35 and 37. Was Insurance appears nowhere in the 37 pages.
- Unlimited emergency medical, worldwide: Page 12 states Unlimited, not a large number. Nothing in the wording reduces it for the United States, for Japan or for anywhere else. Your destination changes your premium, never your ceiling.
- No age band cuts your cover: We read all 37 pages and found no reduced limit for an older traveller. The only age rules are that you must be 18 to buy and 99 or under, and our own offer settings match both.
- Most activities are in the base plan: Page 13 says the policy is designed to keep you covered on most adventures and then names the exceptions. There is no adventure pack to buy for diving with an open water certificate, or for trekking.
- Ten benefits carry no excess at all: The hospital daily benefit, funeral expenses, travel delay, personal accident, personal liability, rental vehicle excess, the three activity packs and pet boarding are all settled without your excess coming off.
- Twenty-one days to change your mind: Cancel inside the cooling off period for a full refund, and pro rata afterwards, provided you have not started the trip and are not claiming. Refunds are processed within 15 business days.
- Six familiar benefits are optional extras: Cancellation, travel delay, personal accident, personal liability, luggage and rental vehicle excess are covered only if your Certificate of Insurance shows them as selected.
- The big numbers are ceilings you buy up to: The wording reads as selected up to $40,000 for cancellation and as selected up to $2,500,000 for liability. What you hold is whatever you chose and paid for, not the headline.
- Travel delay pays $50 per six hours, not $2,000: A ten hour night in an airport is worth $50. Reaching the $2,000 headline would take 240 hours of continuous delay.
- A condition you already have is not covered until it is screened: Page 14 says the plan does not automatically cover pre-existing conditions, and the definition catches any new or increased medication in the past 12 months.
- The document argues with itself about altitude: The summary on page 13 excludes trekking above 3,000 metres. The binding general exclusions on page 32 set no altitude limit at all.
Every year, our experts audit each plan against its binding policy wording: the covers, the limits and the exclusions, cross-checked with real customer feedback and live market prices. The analysis is fully independent, with zero paid placements and no insurer able to pay to influence a rating. We compare travel insurance across every country and currency, using the plans, prices and cover actually offered in your country rather than one guide translated. For this page we read the battleface Combined Product Disclosure Statement and Financial Services Guide effective 9 September 2025 from cover to cover, and where our own listing disagrees with that wording we publish the wording and say plainly where our data is wrong.
Learn moreWhat does every Discovery policy pay for, whatever you tick?
Four things, and they are the four that cost the most when they go wrong. The Schedule of Benefits on page 12 divides the plan into Standard Covers, which are in every policy, and Optional Covers, which are not. Everything in this table belongs to the first group and needs no decision from you.
Standard cover | Limit per insured person | What the wording adds |
|---|---|---|
Emergency medical and additional expenses | Unlimited | Paid for up to 12 months of treatment, and it carries the repatriation to Australia with a medical escort |
Emergency dental | $2,000 | A sub-limit inside the medical benefit, for immediate relief of pain to sound natural teeth and emergency denture repairs |
Funeral expenses abroad | $20,000 | Burial or cremation overseas including return of ashes, or transport of your body home. No excess |
Hospital benefit and confinement | $50 a day, up to $5,000 | Paid for every full 24 hours you spend overseas as an in-patient, on top of the treatment itself. No excess |
Airfare reimbursement | $2,500 | Your original fare back, and only if you return with a medical escort and more than five days or 25 per cent of the trip remains |
Our comparison card reads the medical benefit from the older of the two feature sets we keep. That older set records Actual costs where the newer one correctly records Unlimited, and the renderer uses the older one. So the strongest thing about this plan shows up on the card in the weakest wording available. The contract says Unlimited, for up to 12 months of treatment. We have logged the correction and we would rather tell you here than wait for it.
Which Discovery benefits exist only if your certificate says so?
Ten, and this is the most important thing to understand before you compare Discovery with anything else. Every section below opens with the same sentence in the wording: this cover only applies if it is shown as selected on the Certificate of Insurance. If you have compared Discovery against an all-in Australian policy on headline limits alone, you have compared two different products.
The second half of the trap is the phrasing of the limits themselves. Cancellation is not $40,000. It is as selected up to $40,000, and the premium climbs with the figure you pick. The same construction applies to personal accident, personal liability, luggage and the rental vehicle excess.
Optional cover | The most you can select | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
Cancellation or trip interruption | As selected up to $40,000 | Cover starts the day you buy, not the day you fly. Only the events listed on page 19 count. Excess applies |
Personal liability | As selected up to $2,500,000 | No excess. Never applies to a hired motorcycle or moped, even once you have bought the Motorcycle pack |
Personal accident | As selected up to $50,000 | Death or permanent total disablement, where the accident is the sole and direct cause within 12 months. No excess |
Luggage and personal effects | As selected up to $10,000 | Any single item, pair or set is capped at $2,000. Includes $5,000 for replacing a passport or visa and $500 for prescription medication. Excess applies |
Rental vehicle excess | As selected up to $8,000 | Campervans and motorhomes up to 4.5 tonnes count. Driving on unsealed roads breaks it. No excess |
Travel delay | $50 per 6 hours, to a selected maximum of $2,000 | The delay must exceed six hours and be outside your control. Meals, transfers and luggage storage. No excess |
Snow pack | Sub-limits per the wording | Turns snow sports from excluded to covered, and adds $300 of unusable pre-paid costs, $100 a day up to $500 if the lift system closes, and $300 of replacement equipment hire |
Motorcycle and moped pack | Sub-limits per the wording | Engines up to 250cc, a valid Australian licence and a helmet. Your personal liability stays excluded |
Cruise pack | Per your certificate | Without it a multi-night cruise is excluded outright, including medical costs incurred on board. Day and overnight ferries are not cruises |
Pet boarding | $200 a day, up to $1,400 | Kennel or cattery fees if your return to Australia is delayed by 24 hours or more. No excess |
Our data has no state for a cover that exists but has to be selected. So cancellation at $40,000, luggage at $10,000, liability at $2,500,000, personal accident at $50,000, rental vehicle excess at $8,000 and travel delay at $2,000 all appear on the Discovery card as plain included limits. Two lines of the card’s own summary go further and state that trip cancellation is included as standard and that rental vehicle excess cover is included. Neither is true of the policy as sold. The contract governs, the card is wrong, and the error is ours rather than the insurer’s. Read your Certificate of Insurance before you assume any of the six is there.
If cancellation is your real reason for insuring, price it deliberately here instead of assuming it, and read our guide to travel cancellation insurance first. The same applies if a multi-night sailing is the trip: without the Cruise pack this wording excludes it entirely, and our page on cruise travel insurance sets out what a complete answer looks like.
What does unlimited medical mean once the 12-month clock starts?
It means there is no dollar ceiling and there is a calendar one. Page 16 pays for necessary treatment, hospital expenses and in-patient and out-patient care overseas with no maximum attached. Page 17 then stops paying for treatment incurred more than 12 months after the onset of the illness, injury or condition. For a broken leg in Bali that limit will never matter. For a stroke that leaves you in care abroad, the 12-month mark is the day the cover ends.
The uncapped figure also carries the journey home. Medical transport to the nearest suitable hospital, moving you between hospitals, repatriation to Australia with a medical escort, and the cost of a non-medical escort where the medical officer says you need one, all sit inside the same benefit rather than under a separate ceiling.
Medicare matters here in two ways, and neither is the one Australians usually expect. First, a valid Medicare card is one of the two ways you qualify to buy this policy at all. Without one you need to be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident, or a New Zealand passport holder with unrestricted entry rights and access to long-term medical care in Australia. Second, page 30 removes from every claim the extent of your loss recoverable under some other scheme, and it names Medicare, private health funds and workers compensation. If a reciprocal health care agreement or your health fund pays part of a bill, this policy pays the remainder, not the whole.
- Anything that first appeared before you left: Cover applies to an illness or injury first showing after you leave Australia. A condition already running when you boarded is a pre-existing condition question, not a medical claim.
- Treatment that could wait until you are home: If the insurer's medical officer or the treating practitioner thinks it can reasonably be delayed until you are back in Australia, it is not paid.
- Costs incurred in Australia: Nothing spent at home is covered, with the single exception of transporting your remains.
- Refusing a repatriation the doctors have approved: If you are fit to be flown home, are asked to go and decline, the insurer may cap what it pays at what the claim would have cost had you returned.
- Search and rescue: Being looked for by the coastguard or the army is excluded. Emergency medical evacuation by the most suitable transport, and mountain rescue services, stay covered.
- Routine, planned or follow-up care: Pre-planned treatment, diagnostic procedures, and the continuation of anything started before the trip, including ongoing medication and immunisations.
If flying you home is the part you are really insuring against, our guide to repatriation insurance explains who makes that decision and who pays for it. Anyone comparing medical ceilings later in life will find the age-related questions in travel insurance for senior citizens.
Which activities does this wording include, and which one does it contradict itself on?
Most of them, which is the quiet advantage of this plan. Page 13 says the policy is designed to keep you covered on most adventures and then names the exceptions, rather than starting from nothing and selling activities back to you one at a time. Scuba diving is in, provided you hold an open water certificate or dive with a qualified instructor. So is trekking, so is amateur sport, so is nearly everything a normal holiday contains.
Three things move from excluded to covered by buying a pack: snow sports, riding a motorcycle or moped, and multi-night cruising. Everything else on the exclusion list stays out whatever you pay.
Activity | Where it stands | The detail that decides it |
|---|---|---|
Scuba diving | Covered as standard | Only if you hold an open water diving certificate or are diving with a qualified instructor |
Amateur sport and general adventure | Covered as standard | No adventure pack exists on this plan, and none is needed |
Snow sports | Snow pack required | Groomed, marked, open and monitored runs inside resort boundaries. No racing, freestyle, ski jumping, acrobatics, skeleton or luge. Off-piste only with a qualified instructor or guide |
Motorcycle or moped riding | Motorcycle and moped pack required | 250cc maximum, a valid Australian licence and a licence valid where you ride, helmet on. Personal liability stays excluded even with the pack |
Multi-night cruising | Cruise pack required | Without it even medical costs incurred on board are excluded. Daily and overnight scheduled ferries are not cruises |
Trekking above 3,000 metres on foot | Disputed, see below | Excluded by the page 13 summary, not excluded by the page 32 general exclusions |
Technical mountain climbing | Excluded | Anything needing pick-axes, anchors, bolts, crampons, carabiners, or lead or top-rope anchoring |
Racing, motor sport, polo, hunting, professional sport | Excluded | Racing on foot is the only exception the wording makes |
Parachuting, hang-gliding, paragliding | Excluded | No pack buys these back |
Private sailing in international waters | Excluded | Travel into international waters on a private or privately registered vessel |
The plain-English summary on page 13 says hiking, trekking or mountaineering is not covered above 3,000 metres in altitude, or where specialised climbing equipment is required. The binding general exclusions on pages 31 and 32 name only mountain climbing requiring equipment such as pick-axes, anchors, bolts, crampons, carabiners, lead or top-rope anchoring, and set no altitude limit anywhere at all. A non-technical walker on the Everest Base Camp trail at 5,364 metres is therefore excluded by one part of this document and covered by another. We are not going to guess which one a claims handler applies. If your trip goes above 3,000 metres on foot, ask battleface to confirm the position in writing before you pay, and keep the answer.
Our data records ski cover as not available on Discovery, and for the policy as sold that is accurate: page 31 excludes any snow sports unless you have purchased the optional Snow pack. What our schema cannot express is that the pack exists, that it extends every other cover you selected to snow-sport claims, and that it adds $300 of unusable pre-paid lift passes, tuition and hire, $100 a day up to $500 if the lift system closes for more than 24 hours, and $300 of replacement equipment hire. If skiing is why you are shopping, Discovery is a candidate and our card does not tell you so.
What if you buy Discovery once you have already left Australia?
You are insured, and not yet. Page 7 imposes a 48 hour no-cover period from the moment of purchase on any policy bought after you have left home, and the wording works the example through: buy at 9am on Monday and cover starts at 9am on Wednesday. Nothing that happens in between is covered, even where the treatment or the expense lands after cover starts.
Our quote form says nothing about this. It will price and sell to somebody departing today or already overseas, which is exactly the buyer the clause is aimed at. Three other places where our stored settings are looser than the contract are worth reading before you rely on a quote.
Condition | What the wording requires | What our offer settings allow |
|---|---|---|
Where you live | An Australian resident holding a valid Medicare card, or an Australian citizen, permanent resident or New Zealand passport holder with unrestricted entry rights and access to long-term medical care in Australia | Only that you are departing Australia. The Medicare card is never asked about |
Your age at purchase | 18 or older, and 99 or younger | Any age from 0. A sole traveller of 10 can be quoted a policy the wording will not sell them |
Where you go | Overseas. This is the International Plan | Australia is on the destination list, so a domestic Australian trip can be quoted |
Buying after you have departed | Allowed, with 48 hours of no cover | Allowed, with no mention of the waiting period |
Trip length | Up to 365 days, buyable up to 12 months ahead | Matches. Treatment is paid for a maximum of 12 months from onset either way |
Travellers on one policy | 1 to 20 | Matches, though the 20 is our own default: the wording sets no group ceiling |
Australia appears on this offer’s destination list in our own database, so our comparator can return Discovery for a domestic Australian trip. The contract will not pay for one. Cover under the medical section applies to an illness or injury first showing after you leave Australia, page 16, and page 17 excludes costs incurred in Australia other than transporting your remains. A Sydney to Perth policy written on this wording would pay nothing. That is our configuration error, it is logged, and until it is fixed you should treat any Discovery quote for an Australian destination as invalid and buy a domestic policy instead.
How does Discovery handle a condition you already have?
By excluding it until you have declared it, been screened online and paid whatever the insurer asks. Page 14 is unambiguous: the policy does not automatically cover pre-existing medical conditions, and that includes any claim where a pre-existing condition is merely a contributing factor. This is the largest single gap between the contract and the way our own listing describes it.
The definition is wider than most people assume, and it reaches past you. It applies to you, to everyone in your travelling party, to a close relative and to anyone else named on your Certificate of Insurance. Your father's heart condition is a pre-existing condition for your policy.
- New or increased medication in the last 12 months: Common colds, flu and contraceptive medication are carved out of this test. Everything else counts.
- Any medication prescribed by a specialist in the last 12 months: A prescription from your GP does not trigger it. One from a specialist does.
- Symptoms under investigation: Signs apparent to you and being investigated or treated by a medical practitioner, including an allied health practitioner, count even without a diagnosis.
- An overnight hospital admission in the last 12 months: A single night is enough.
- Surgery in the last 12 months, or a place on a surgical waitlist: Note that the definitions section on page 10 lists recent surgery and the same definition reprinted on page 14 leaves it out. Page 10 is the binding definition, so work on the basis that surgery counts.
- A change in your health after you buy: If your health changes before departure, your practitioner has to confirm you are still fit to travel or the condition is not covered when you go.
Where a condition is declared, screened and accepted, the acceptance and any extra premium are recorded on your Certificate of Insurance, and cover for that condition begins only once the premium is paid. Two hard walls sit around the process. A metastatic or terminal prognosis made before you bought the policy is excluded outright, and so is any condition for which you have declined treatment or further investigation that a practitioner recommended.
Pregnancy is not treated as a pre-existing condition, but the cover is narrow and there are two cut-offs rather than one. Unexpected serious complications are covered up to the 24th week for a single child and only to the 19th week for twins or more. Childbirth at any stage, the care of a newborn and antenatal care are never covered. A pregnancy conceived with hormone therapy or IVF is excluded entirely, as is any pregnancy where you have had complications before, in this pregnancy or in a previous one.
Our offer record marks pre-existing conditions as included. The wording says they are not covered unless screened, accepted and paid for. Our record also marks a visa refusal refund as included; visa refusal appears nowhere in the list of events that trigger cancellation cover on page 19, and page 20 refuses any event that is not on that list, so on this plan a refused visa is not a cancellation claim. The third is smaller: our pregnancy field stores a single figure of 24 weeks and cannot express the 19-week limit that applies to a multiple pregnancy. On all three the contract is what governs your claim, and all three are logged for correction.
Anyone insuring around a declared condition should compare the whole market on that basis rather than on headline limits. Our guide to pre-existing condition travel insurance sets out what a good screening process looks like.
What is a stolen laptop worth once depreciation and the excess come off?
Considerably less than you paid, and the wording is refreshingly explicit about it. Lost and stolen items are settled on a depreciation table applied monthly from the purchase date, up to a maximum of 80 per cent of the original price. Your excess then comes off what is left.
The contract's own worked example is a $1,000 electronic item bought in March 2023 and lost in March 2025. Two years is 24 months at 1.5 per cent, so 36 per cent, or $360, is deducted, leaving $640. A $100 excess then leaves $540 paid on a $1,000 device. Damaged items are repaired where that is practical and economical rather than replaced.
Item category | Monthly depreciation | What that means after two years |
|---|---|---|
Jewellery, excluding costume jewellery and watches | 0% | Nothing is deducted for age |
Communication and electronic devices, phones, smart watches, cameras, computers | 1.5% | 36 per cent of the purchase price is gone |
Clothing, including prescription glasses and sunglasses | 1.5% | 36 per cent of the purchase price is gone |
All other items | 1.5% | 36 per cent of the purchase price is gone |
Toiletries, cosmetics, skincare, fragrances, dental and haircare | 3% | 72 per cent of the purchase price is gone |
- Anything left unattended: Left in a public place where it can be taken without your knowledge, or at a distance where you cannot stop it being taken, or with somebody outside your travelling party who does not work for your carrier or hotel.
- Valuables left in a car, for any length of time: Even locked in the boot. Valuables checked in as luggage are also out, unless security rules forced you to hand them over.
- A cracked screen: Damage to the screen of a computer, smartphone or tablet, unless it happened in an accident involving the vehicle or carrier you were travelling in.
- Sporting equipment while it is in use: Covered in transit, not covered mid-game.
- Cash: Cash, bank notes, currency notes, cheques and negotiable instruments are excluded outright. There is no money benefit anywhere on this plan.
- Anything you did not report: Every loss, theft or delay must be reported to an appropriate authority and a copy of the report submitted with the claim, or you need a reasonable explanation and the details of where you reported it.
Inside the same optional cover sit $5,000 for replacing a lost or stolen passport or visa, including the travel and accommodation needed to do it, $500 for replacing prescription medication overseas, and cover for the unauthorised use of a credit card lost or stolen on the trip. A separate delayed baggage allowance pays up to $300 a person after 12 hours, with no excess, and does not apply on the journey home. Against all that, the $10,000 headline hides a $2,000 cap on any single item, pair or set, so a $4,000 camera is a $2,000 claim before depreciation is even applied.
Which company actually owes you money on a Discovery claim?
Pacific International Insurance Pty Ltd does. battleface issues the policy and settles the claim on its behalf, Robin Assist answers the phone, and Was Insurance is a name the document never uses. Several companies stand between the brand on our listing and the balance sheet behind your claim, and the order is worth knowing before you need it.
Role | Who it is | Where the wording says so |
|---|---|---|
The insurer carrying the risk | Pacific International Insurance Pty Ltd, ABN 83 169 311 193, AFSL 523921 | The insurer page 6, the definition of Insurer page 10, About the insurer page 35, and the back cover page 37 |
Who issues the policy and settles claims | battleface Insurance Services Pty Ltd, ABN 28 650 606 045, AFSL 536280, Level 11, 66 Clarence Street, Sydney | Who are we? page 6 and About battleface page 35, acting under a binder authority from the insurer |
24/7 emergency assistance and claims | Robin Assist, on (02) 8880 5820 in Australia or +61 2 8880 5820 from overseas | Pages 4 and 32 |
Internal complaints | battleface, acknowledged within one business day, with resolution aimed at ten | Internal Dispute Resolution page 33 |
External dispute resolution | Australian Financial Complaints Authority, 1800 931 678, free, within two years of a final decision | External Dispute Resolution page 33 |
If the insurer fails | The Federal Government's Financial Claims Scheme, 1300 55 88 49 | Financial Claims Scheme page 34 |
Governing law | New South Wales, with service of process at PO Box 550, Kotara NSW 2289 | Jurisdiction and choice of law page 34 |
The insurer recorded against this offer in our own database is Was Insurance, and the logo we hold for it is a Was Insurance logo. The 37 pages of the binding wording never use that name once. They name Pacific International Insurance Pty Ltd as the insurer, four separate times, and battleface Insurance Services Pty Ltd as the agent that issues the policy and settles the claim. Our own internal notes on this offer already say Pacific International, so this is a correction we owe rather than something we have just found out. None of it changes what you are covered for. It changes whose name goes on a complaint to AFCA.
- Call before you spend
Contact Robin Assist in a medical emergency wherever that is reasonably practicable, and always before significant treatment or an admission. - Get the medical certificate at the time
A cancellation or interruption claim needs a certificate from the treating practitioner confirming the illness or injury stopped you travelling, plus prior consent before you come home early. - Report thefts and delays to an authority
Every luggage loss, theft or delay needs a report, and a copy of it with the claim, or a reasonable explanation and the contact details of whoever you reported it to. - Keep proof of ownership, not photographs
Receipts, invoices, bank statements, valuation certificates or warranty cards backed by a statement. Photographs, packaging and instruction manuals are not accepted as proof. - Lodge the claim online at battleface.com
The claim service standard is an outcome within 10 business days of a complete lodgement, or contact within 10 business days where more information is needed. - Escalate to AFCA if you are stuck
Internal dispute resolution first, then AFCA on 1800 931 678. It is free, and you can go there at any time rather than waiting for the internal process to finish.
You have 21 days from the day you buy to cancel for a full refund. Outside that window the unused part of the premium is refunded pro rata. Either way a refund is only considered if you have not started the trip, have not claimed and do not intend to, and it is processed within 15 business days. Worth knowing too: the period of insurance extends itself automatically if a covered event delays your return, until you can get back to Australia by the quickest route.
Why does our listing quote one figure for every Discovery trip?
Because it is not a quote. The $42 shown against Discovery on our comparator is a single fixed amount stored against the offer. It does not move with your age, your destination, how long you are away, how many of you are travelling or which of the ten optional covers you select. The same $42 appears on four days in Queenstown and on eleven months across South America.
The other two Australian plans we list behave the same way, so the three figures are useful for putting the plans in order and useless for budgeting. The contract itself names eight things that move the real premium, and our stored figure reflects none of them.
Plan | Stored from-price | Insurer named in the wording | Age ceiling in our data |
|---|---|---|---|
Discovery listed under Was Insurance | $42 | Pacific International Insurance Pty Ltd | 99, and the wording agrees |
Overseas Explorer Freely | $40 | Zurich Australian Insurance Limited | 99 in our funnel, none in the wording |
The Basics Travel Insurance Direct | $49 | Travel Insurance Direct | 75 |
- How far ahead you buy
The wording states that the further in advance you purchase, the higher the premium may be, which is the reverse of what most people assume. - Your age and the length of the trip
Both push the premium up, and neither is reflected in our stored figure. - Your destination
Places where medical costs run high cost more to insure, even though the medical ceiling itself never changes. - The excess you pick
A higher excess buys a lower premium. Remember that the excess applies per insured person and per event. - Every optional cover and every selected limit
This is the big one on Discovery. Ten packs and five variable limits all price separately, so two Discovery policies can differ by a multiple. - Any medical screening loading
Told to you after the assessment, and cover for that condition only begins once it has been paid.
Read the cover on this page, then take the premium from the quote itself. Our travel insurance comparison prices what an Australian resident can actually be sold for your dates, your ages and your destination.
Was Discovery travel insurance review: the answers Australians look for
On the wording, yes, with one large caveat, and we score it 3.5 out of 5. Emergency medical and repatriation are unlimited for up to 12 months of treatment, there is no reduced ceiling for the United States and none for older travellers, and most adventurous activities are included rather than sold as add-ons. The caveat is that cancellation, luggage, personal liability, personal accident, travel delay and rental vehicle excess are optional covers rather than part of the plan, and each one is a limit you select rather than a limit you simply get.
Pacific International Insurance Pty Ltd, ABN 83 169 311 193, AFSL 523921. It is named as the insurer on pages 6, 10, 35 and 37 of the policy document. battleface Insurance Services Pty Ltd, ABN 28 650 606 045, AFSL 536280, issues the policy and settles claims under a binder authority, and Robin Assist handles emergency assistance. The name Was Insurance, which is how the plan appears on our own listing, does not appear anywhere in the 37 pages, and we are correcting that record.
We cannot tell you from this page. The $42 on our listing is a fixed catalogue figure stored against the offer: it does not change with your age, your destination, your trip length or the number of travellers. The wording itself names eight things that move the real premium, including how far ahead you buy, the excess you choose, every optional cover you add and any loading after a medical assessment. Take the figure from the quote, never from the card.
No. Cancellation or trip interruption is an optional cover and applies only if your Certificate of Insurance shows it as selected. The most you can select is $40,000 per insured person, and the premium rises with the figure you pick. Cover starts on the day you buy rather than the day you fly, and it pays only for the events listed on page 19 of the wording. If our comparison card shows cancellation as included as standard on this plan, the card is wrong and the contract governs.
Not as sold. Page 31 excludes any snow sports unless you have bought the optional Snow pack. With the pack, skiing, snowboarding, sledding, tobogganing and tubing are covered on groomed, marked, open and monitored runs inside resort boundaries, and you also get $300 of unusable pre-paid costs, $100 a day up to $500 if the lift system closes for more than 24 hours, and $300 of replacement equipment hire. Racing, freestyle, ski jumping, acrobatics, skeleton and luge stay out, and off-piste is only covered with a qualified instructor or guide.
There is no dollar limit. The Schedule of Benefits states Unlimited for emergency medical and additional expenses, with a $2,000 sub-limit for emergency dental treatment. The constraint is time rather than money: nothing is paid for treatment incurred more than 12 months after the onset of the illness, injury or condition. There is no reduced ceiling for the United States, Canada or any other region, which is unusual and genuinely valuable.
Yes, at both ends. You must be 18 or older to buy the policy and there is an upper age limit of 99 years, both stated on page 7. This is one of the places our data is right: the age ceiling we store matches the contract exactly. The one gap is at the bottom, where our quote form will accept an age of 0 for a sole traveller, which the wording will not sell.
Not automatically. The wording says the plan does not cover them, including any claim where a pre-existing condition is only a contributing factor. Cover is possible if you complete the online medical screening before purchase, the insurer accepts the condition and you pay any additional premium, which is then recorded on your Certificate of Insurance. The definition is wide, catching new or increased medication in the past 12 months, any specialist prescription, symptoms under investigation, an overnight admission, recent surgery or a surgical waitlist, and it applies to your travelling party and close relatives as well as to you.
Yes, but not straight away. Page 7 applies a 48 hour no-cover period from the moment of purchase to any policy bought after you have left home, and works the example through: buy at 9am on Monday and cover starts at 9am on Wednesday. Nothing that happens in the gap is covered, even if the treatment or the expense comes later. Our quote form will sell you the policy without mentioning this.
No, and you should not be offered it. This is the International Plan. Medical cover applies to an illness or injury first showing after you leave Australia, and costs incurred in Australia are excluded other than transporting your remains. Australia is currently on this offer’s destination list in our own database, so our comparator can return it for a domestic trip. That is our error, we have logged it, and a domestic Australian trip needs a domestic policy.
Whatever you selected when you bought, shown on your Certificate of Insurance, applied per insured person and per event. Where one event triggers benefits under several sections, only the highest applicable excess is taken rather than one for each. Ten benefits carry no excess at all: funeral expenses abroad, the hospital daily benefit, travel delay, personal accident, personal liability, rental vehicle excess, the Snow, Motorcycle and Cruise packs, pet boarding, the delayed baggage allowance and rearrangement after a natural disaster warning.
The document does not agree with itself, so we are giving you both readings. The summary on page 13 says hiking, trekking or mountaineering above 3,000 metres is not covered. The binding general exclusions on pages 31 and 32 exclude only mountain climbing that requires equipment such as pick-axes, anchors, bolts, crampons or rope anchoring, with no altitude limit anywhere. A non-technical walker at Everest Base Camp is excluded by one and covered by the other. Ask battleface to confirm in writing before you pay, and keep the answer with your policy.
Where does Discovery beat the other Australian plans we list?
On the two things that are hardest to buy elsewhere: activities inside the plan rather than sold back to you, and an age rule our own funnel actually matches. Three plans can be reached through us from an Australian address and they separate cleanly. Overseas Explorer sells a deliberately narrow base and lets you buy risky days one at a time. The Basics stops at 75. Discovery sits between them, covering most adventures with no pack at all while making the familiar non-medical benefits optional.
Our recommendation for an Australian trip
Take Discovery if the medical risk is what you are insuring and you want most of your activities inside the plan rather than bought back day by day. Unlimited emergency medical with no regional cut and no age band, most adventures covered as standard, and a 99 year ceiling our own quote form matches, are a strong combination at this end of the Australian market. Then do three things before you pay. Open the quote and select cancellation, luggage, liability and travel delay deliberately, because none of them is in the plan by default whatever our card suggests. Choose those limits against your real exposure, since $40,000 and $2,500,000 are ceilings you buy up to rather than figures you receive. And if your trip goes above 3,000 metres on foot, includes a multi-night cruise or involves a hired scooter, settle it in writing first: the altitude question is genuinely unresolved in the document, and the cruise and the scooter each need their own pack. If you would rather not have to remember to tick cancellation and liability at all, price the other two Australian plans before you commit.
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The three plans an Australian resident can reach through HelloSafe, captured on 12 September 2026 for one traveller aged 45, 14 days in Indonesia (5 to 19 November 2026), departing Australia, a $3,000 trip, in Australian dollars. Read these figures carefully. All three are fixed amounts stored against the offer, not premiums calculated for this trip: none of them moves with your age, your destination, how long you are away or how many of you are travelling. Treat them as a starting point and take the real premium from the quote itself. The Basics stops at age 75; Overseas Explorer and Discovery accept any age. Overseas Explorer covers overseas trips only, so Australian domestic travel will not return it.
HelloSafe is available as an app inside ChatGPT. Install it from ChatGPT’s Apps tab, then type @HelloSafe followed by your destination and dates to compare travel insurance.
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