Travel insurance

With our Premier policy, if you’re delayed at your departure point for more than 12 hours, we’ll pay £25 per 12-hour period from the scheduled departure time up to a total of £250.

If you’re delayed for more than 24 hours, you can choose to cancel your trip or we'll pay up to £1,000 per insured person per trip for extra costs you have to pay to get to your scheduled destination.

Our Essential policy doesn’t include cover for delays.

Check out our article to find out more about what happens when you're faced with travel delays or cancellations

Our annual policy is only available to travellers who are aged 79 and under. You can also choose from two different levels of cover - Essential or Premier.

The maximum trip length under an annual multi-trip Premier policy is 90 days or 31 days under an Essential annual multi-trip policy.

On a single trip if you're between 65 and 79, the maximum trip length is 90 days or 31 days if you're 80 or over.

> Read our over 50's travel guide

> Read our over 65's travel guide

> Read our over 70's travel guide

> Read our over 75's travel guide

> Read our over 80's travel guide

We offer two levels of annual travel insurance to suit your needs - Essential and Premier.

Our Essential policy offers up to £10 million emergency medical cover, £5,000 cancellation cover and £25,000 personal accident cover.

Premier offers everything that Essential does but offers £10,000 cancellation cover plus extra cover for missed or cancelled flights, delays due to bad weather, strikes or other mishaps that may interrupt your travel plans.

Emergency medical treatment abroad can prove incredibly costly. So, one of the most important reasons for having travel insurance is to cover you for the potentially very high cost of treatment if you fall ill while you’re away.

Most countries don’t have the same sort of medical provision we enjoy in the UK (free treatment at the point of need) and having to receive treatment in a foreign country can quickly become very expensive, especially in countries like the USA where even a short stay in hospital can land you a bill running into tens of thousands of pounds.

If you’re visiting EU countries or Switzerland, the UK has reciprocal health care agreements which can be accessed using your Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) or European Health Insurance Card (if still valid) but not all treatment’s covered and your GHIC won’t cover the cost of your travel if you need to return to the UK sooner than planned.

Another reason travel insurance is important is it covers you for the cost of cancellation if you find you can’t travel.  You can cover the cost of your holiday if you’re unable to travel due to certain circumstances, for example if you or a close relative (or someone you were planning to stay with) fell ill unexpectedly.  Some policies also cover reasons like jury service, armed forces and NHS call up, or damage to your home that means you can’t leave, e.g. fire.

The most important thing to remember is to take out insurance before you travel to get the full benefit of cover.

Getting the right cover to suit your needs is essential so it’s worth considering additional benefits, often available as optional extras, such as:

• Baggage cover for lost or stolen bags including personal items of value
• Cover for uncommon activities such as scuba diving and wakeboarding
• Cover for delay or missed departure
• Specific cover relating to winter sports or cruises

Since 1 January 2021 the GHIC is accepted in all EU countries as well as Switzerland. It's not currently accepted in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. If you don’t have one, you can now apply for a Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC). The GHIC entitles you to reduced cost or free state healthcare in the countries you visit.

However, not all medical costs are covered by these health agreements, so your travel insurance will cover you for all other medical expenses, including bringing you home if you're too unwell to complete your trip.

An LV= travel insurance policy provides up to £10 million emergency medical cover outside the UK as well as things like:

• Lost costs if you need to cancel or cut a trip short due to illness
• Transport costs to get you home if you can't use your original scheduled transport arrangements due to illness
• The costs for someone to arrange for someone to travel to you if it's medically necessary

You should consider cover buying travel insurance to cover the unexpected.

Travel insurance will cover you for:

• Cancellation if you or your travelling companion becomes ill or injured and can’t travel
• Transport costs to get you home or transferred by ambulance to a hospital near your home should you fall ill whilst away
• Baggage claims – if you selected this cover 

Find out more by reading our Staycation article.

Although we don't have a specific backpacker policy, LV= travel insurance is suitable for a backpacking holiday.

If you're under 65, our single trip policy covers trips up to 366 days long. You can also add optional baggage, personal belongings and money cover to your policy too, in case your things get lost or stolen while you're away.

* If you're 65 or over, we can cover trips up to 90 days. If you decide to return home before your cover end date, the cover will end.

If your backpacking trip involves different trips to and from the UK, then our annual multi-trip policy could be more suitable as it can cover individual trips up to 90 days long so long as you select our Premier level of cover and you are under 80 years of age.

If, after travelling to your destination, the FCDO advice is to leave the area you're staying in, then you're covered to cut your trip short.

If this situation arises, please contact our 24 hour assistance helpline on +44 1243 621 537 (01243 621 537 from the UK).

If the FCDO advice is simply against travelling to the destination you are already in, there is no cover to cut your trip short; however, you can call the 24 hour helpline if you need any help or advice.

If you run out of prescription medication because you were unable to return home as planned we can cover the costs of additional medication.

If you've taken out optional baggage cover and you lose your medication, we'll cover the cost of replacing it.

Full details can be found on Your Document of Travel Insurance.

If your baggage is delayed or lost in transit, you should tell the company that is transporting your baggage within 24 hours of discovery and ask them to complete a Property Irregularity Report or provide you with a baggage loss receipt.

If you have chosen to add our baggage cover to your policy and your baggage is delayed for more than 12 hours from when you arrive at your destination, your policy provides cover for the purchase of necessary items: up to £250 on our Essential policy and up to £500 on our Premier policy.

If you have cruise cover, the cover limits include the cost of couriering your baggage to your cruise vessel if it has already left the port.

If your baggage is stolen, you should report this to the local police within 24 hours of discovering the theft and obtain a written report. You can claim up to £2,000 on our Essential policy and up to £3,000 on our Premier policy for stolen or lost items. There is a single item limit and total valuables limit of £300 on Essential and £500 on Premier.

If your baggage is lost, you should report the loss to an appropriate person depending on where the loss occurs; for instance, if you lost a ring while in a restaurant, you'd report that to the manager of the restaurant, if you lost a ring while in your accommodation you'd report that to the manager or owner of the accommodation. You must obtain written evidence that you have reported the loss.

To make a claim on your LV= travel insurance, visit our travel claims hub or call us on 0330 678 6225

Lines open:

Mon-Fri 8am-6pm

Saturday 8am-4pm

Sunday and Bank Holidays Closed

Calls may be recorded. For Text Phone first dial 18001

If you need emergency assistance call our 24/7 helpline on 01243 621 537
From outside the UK: +44 1243 621 537

Depending on what section of your policy you're claiming under, you may need to give us certain types of information or evidence; for example, your original trip booking invoice and travel documents showing the dates and times of travel, evidence that losses or thefts have been reported, or evidence of ownership and value of goods .

Please see the relevant section of your policy for more information on what documents you may need.