I refreshed the page and blinked.
“What? Are you…? I don’t…?” I muttered to myself. “Are you kidding me?”
Staring back at me from my phone was a message I’d never received before.
My jaw dropped.
If you can believe it, despite having more than 15 years of travel under my belt, I have never had a flight cancelled before.
It was the 27th June 2026, and thanks to a particularly sluggish-yet-aggressive thunderstorm, tens of thousands of flights had been cancelled or delayed across Europe. Judging by the sudden cacophony in Gatwick Airport, and the queue stretching for more than 100 metres at the customer services desk, I suspected easyJet had just cancelled the vast majority of its flights.
Welp.
I had to think fast: on the easyJet app, there was a list of replacement flights, but practically every traveller in Europe was looking at the same thing. Every option I tapped on sold out before I could confirm my choice.
I was well and truly stranded, and the chaos wasn’t making it easier to think. After a deep breath, I attempted to regroup.
I would cancel my flight for a refund, take a coach to my parents’ house (fortunately, they live nearby; I live in Australia), and deal with the rest once I was out of this overcrowded airport.
Travel insurance didn’t even cross my mind until I was on the coach and practicing my best thousand-yard stare.
I’d bought a policy at the airport, five hours before my flight was cancelled, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how that was excellent timing. Not that anything would be covered, right? Easyjet was already refunding me for the cancelled flight.
Curious, though, I logged on to SafetyWing and started a live chat with one of their customer service people.
The result was better than I’d expected: despite only buying travel medical insurance from them, there was something I could claim after all. But of course, this was just a live-chat-person giving me a quick response, not me actually making a claim, so I was skeptical that things would go quite so well in reality.
So let’s dig into the details: why I chose SafetyWing, how the claims process went, who I’d recommend SafetyWing to, and whether I’d use them again.
Why I Chose SafetyWing
When you work in the travel industry, you tend to be well-attuned to the risks of not being covered for health emergencies. It’s exactly why I’ve spent years paying $2 a day for SafetyWing’s travel medical insurance.
I take the risk seriously because I’ve seen what happens when you don’t have cover.
I’m sure you’ve come across articles on travellers who got into a nasty accident, ended up hospitalised overseas, and had to start a GoFundMe campaign to get back home because they hadn’t bought travel insurance.
I’ve even received emails from family members of hospitalised travellers who weren’t insured, begging me to share their story with my audience so they can raise funds to bring them home!
And I’ve even seen it happen to people I personally know.
A school friend was hospitalised in Thailand after a car crashed into his motorbike and he had to set up a GoFundMe to get home. An old work colleague of mine died in a scooter accident in Thailand a decade ago.
(Yes, your second takeaway from this article should be that renting scooters in Southeast Asia is a risky activity!)
If I’m being honest, though, as somebody who has travelled full-time for much of the past 15 years, I absolutely resented how much I had to spend on insurance.
Most of the time, I’d end up spending over $2,000 a year on travel insurance; if it was during a year that I was travelling to the U.S., I’d spend more than $3,500 a year! Add in protection for valuables — which I would do — and I could easily be spending $4,000 per year in insurance, when most of the time, nothing would ever go wrong.
But I knew it was necessary, so I kept on paying.
When SafetyWing came on to the scene, I immediately switched to using them. They offer something called the Essential Plan, which is the one I usually buy. It costs $2 a day and basically covers you for the medical side of things: the big, bankruptcy-inducing disasters that could happen while you’re overseas.
My choice to switch came from the privilege of knowing I’d be financially fine if anything non-medical befell my path. If my laptop or phone were stolen, I’d be annoyed that I needed to shell out for new ones — but I could afford the expense and wouldn’t be destitute if it happened.
If my luggage was lost, I could afford to replace it. If I missed a flight, I could buy a new one.
I only really needed to be covered for medical mishaps so that if the worst case scenario happened, I wouldn’t find myself with a six-figure bill at the end of it.
So SafetyWing suited me perfectly. You can see a full list of everything their Essential Plan covers on their site, but I’ll summarise the most relevant parts below.
You’re covered for up to $250,000 per active insurance period, which covers most emergency medical situations. Things like: ambulance and emergency transportation, prescription drugs for illness/injury, repatriation back home, diagnostics, hospital bed rental, emergency dental treatment and surgery, emergency vision test and replacement glasses/contacts, pocket money while hospitalised, visit from a family member in relation to serious injury or illness, and so on.
And while the main focus of the Essential plan is providing you with medical coverage, there’s quite a few travel situations that are covered too:
- Cancelled accommodation: $150 per night for two nights
- Lost checked luggage: $500 per item, up to $3,000 total
- Stolen passport: $100
- Theft of wallet: $150
- Trip interruption: $5,000
- Evacuation from local unrest: $10,000
- Robbery: $500 per belonging; $300 for cash (electronics excluded)
- Delayed transportation: $60 for a 3-8 hour delay, or $150 for 8+ hour delays
That last item on the list was a surprise to me! I really didn’t think that my flight cancellation would be covered at all by SafetyWing.
A few other things I love about SafetyWing:
They have the option to sign-up as a subscription and yes, I know that we all have subscription fatigue, but I also have ADHD, and I will absolutely forget to buy, extend, or renew my policy every few weeks or months, so this really helps me out.
You can also start the policy while you’re overseas — you don’t have to be in your home country. Fun fact: I had no idea this buy-while-you’re-in-your-home-country requirement was common for travel insurance providers and spent the first couple of years of my full-time travels merrily buying travel insurance while overseas and having no idea that I technically wasn’t covered at all!
Oh, and I love that there’s no deductible/excess to pay! When I was hospitalised with vertigo in Türkiye a decade ago, the doctor who was treating me specifically asked what the excess is on my travel insurance; I told him €150 and would you look at that! My hospital bill came to exactly that amount.
What About Exclusions and Downsides?
In terms of exclusions, it’s much the same as any other travel insurance company: SafetyWing won’t cover you for pre-existing medical conditions or anything that isn’t medically necessary. You won’t be covered if the injury happened as a result of you being drunk or on drugs. They don’t cover mental health disorders, cancer, or sexually transmitted diseases.
In my eyes, one of the biggest downsides of SafetyWing is that the price increases if you’re over the age of 39.
Dave, my partner, is older and he actually pays almost double the amount that I do for the Essential Plan. For four weeks, I’d be paying $62.72, while he’d be paying $161.28. It’s still inexpensive for travel medical insurance, but not as much of a deal for him as it is for me.
And the other thing is kind of obvious. As I’ve mentioned, SafetyWing’s Essential Plan is predominantly medical-focused. And while they definitely cover some travel disruption, it’s not going to be as thorough as their Complete Plan or other comprehensive travel insurance providers.
If you’re going away for a week or two and your main concern is whether you’ll be reimbursed if your vacation has been cancelled, your luggage disappears, or your phone is pickpocketed, it may not be the plan for you.
With that being said, I now want to share more about my claims process.
How Easy Was the SafetyWing Claims Process?
I was curious about this part, because travel insurance companies in general have a terrrrrrrrible reputation online, and I’d heard nothing but horror stories of travellers battling with providers for months and ultimately having claims rejected.
To my surprise, the process was super, super easy. When you log in to your SafetyWing dashboard, you’ll see an option to submit a claim. Then, you’ll start filling in your details. For example, for my cancelled flight I submitted the following:
You’re then given the option of choosing which of the covered travel scenarios you’re claiming under (in my case, my travel plans were delayed more than 12 hours):
Next, you’ll need to upload proof to support your claim.
For my situation, I uploaded my original flight booking with easyJet, the email from easyJet that announced my flight was cancelled, and my receipt for the meal I bought that evening after the cancellation.
(I’m fortunate to have parents who live close to Gatwick Airport, so was able to stay at their home for the night, but if I’d needed to pay for accommodation, up to $150 would have been covered, as would any other meals between then and my replacement flight).
Finally, you’re asked for a few more details, like the exact amount you’re claiming for (you can do this in any currency), where the incident happened, your passport number, and anything you think SafetyWing might need to know about what happened. I said the following:
I clicked submit and that was that.
As a millennial with a deep phobia of having to make a phone call, I cannot tell you how much I appreciated being able to do everything online in less than 5 minutes. As an artist with a deep disdain of AI, I was relieved I could ask questions through their live chat and choose to talk to an actual human.
And that was all I needed to do.
My claim was approved four days after I filed it, and the money hit my bank account 15 days later. (It came from a company called ExpaTPA, so if you see a transaction with this name, it’s from SafetyWing!)
Honestly, it was a really easy, pain-free process that required so little effort from my end.
Is SafetyWing Worth It?
For me, yes. And I’ll absolutely keep using them for travel medical insurance in the future — and continue recommending them to you guys. If you’re a budget traveller, it’s really a no-brainer.
What I primarily want from my trips is to be protected from any expensive, unexpected medical disasters that could leave me financially destitute.
If you’re travelling with expensive electronics that you want to ensure will be covered, this likely isn’t going to be the best plan for you. If you’re hoping that your insurance provider will cover every lost possession, missed flight, or risky activity you undertake, the Essential plan also might not be the best.
For a lot of travellers, though, I think this is a good fit. It covers you for the devastating things that nobody wants to think about, covers you for a decent amount of travel misadventure, and is one of the lowest-cost providers around.
Having now been through their claims process, I feel even more confident in my recommendation.
Just read the fine print, check that what you expect to be covered will actually be covered, and make sure you understand what’s excluded in your policy.
SafetyWing FAQ
Just a quick FAQ here for those of you with short attention spans who skimmed the article and don’t care about my thousand-yard stare on a coach out of Gatwick.
Is SafetyWing legit?
Yes, SafetyWing is a legitimate insurance provider offering travel medical insurance to travellers and digital nomads.
I’ve personally used their Essential plan and Complete Plan and made a successful claim with the Essential plan several months ago.
Of course, legit doesn’t mean that everything will be covered. Like any insurance policy, SafetyWing’s coverage is subject to its terms, conditions, exclusions and limits.
How much does SafetyWing cost?
SafetyWing’s Essential plan is just over $2 a day.
Prices do increase once you’re over the age of 39, however.
Over 40s will pay $3.67 a day, over 50s will pay $5.76 a day, and over 60s will be up for $7.82 per day.
How fast does SafetyWing pay claims?
In my case, my claim took four days to be approved and then 15 days to be paid out after that.
SafetyWing currently says that its claims process aims to get members their money back within a few days, but individual claims can vary depending on the circumstances and documentation required.
Does SafetyWing charge a deductible?
No, there’s no deductible at all, which is one of my favourite things about them!
What does SafetyWing cover?
The Essential plan includes travel medical insurance for new, unexpected medical issues while travelling, including hospital stays, surgery, and medications.
It also covers a limited amount of travel-related expenses, like lost luggage, robberies, trip delays, cancelled accommodation, and trip interruptions.
What doesn’t SafetyWing cover?
The important thing to understand is that their Essential plan is travel medical insurance, not a promise to reimburse every expense associated with a trip. It’s predominantly focused on covering you for medical emergencies rather than travel mishaps.
You won’t be covered for pre-existing medical conditions, mental health disorders, cancer, or STDs, or injuries that happen while you’re under the influence of something. Robberies and lost luggage claims won’t cover your electronics.
Can you buy SafetyWing while already travelling?
Yep. You can sign up before you depart or while you’re already travelling.
Is SafetyWing worth it for long-term travellers?
It can be, particularly if what you primarily want is travel medical insurance while moving between countries.
That’s exactly the reason I use it.
But I’d still compare the coverage with your own requirements before buying, because long-term travellers don’t all need the same thing.
