Is it worth buying annual multitrip travel insurance? 

When visiting travel insurance websites to get a quote for insurance you’re often asked to choose between annual multitrip and single-trip insurance. If you’re planning more than one trip that year, paying one fee and not having to worry about travel insurance again sounds convenient, right? But will it save you money?. 

We crunched the numbers, comparing the cost of purchasing single-trip policies with multitrip insurance to work out at what point annual multitrip insurance becomes a good deal.

Is annual multitrip travel insurance good value? 

International annual multitrip travel insurance is expensive, so it’s only good value if you spend a lot of time abroad. We found that you had to travel at least eight times a year for multitrip insurance to be consistently cheaper than buying multiple single-trip policies. If you’re planning fewer than eight trips abroad, whether a multitrip policy is cheaper depends on how long each of your trips are.

If you’re planning three or four overseas holidays, single-trip policies are cheaper if your trips average two weeks or less. Once your trips stretch beyond about three weeks, multitrip insurance tends to offer better value. For trips averaging between two and three weeks, you’ll need to compare quotes for your own circumstances to find the best deal. 

With five trips, a multitrip policy is a better option for trips over 16 days. For six and seven trips, multitrip offers better value for holidays averaging more than 11 and seven days, respectively.

What is annual multitrip insurance?

International annual multitrip travel insurance is a mouthfull, but pretty self explanatory. It’s travel insurance to cover unlimited international trips for a year, with a single fee. You have to pick a global region as the destination for your insurance, but there is usually the option to choose “worldwide” insurance meaning that your trips basically anywhere will be covered. However, places the Australian government warns travellers not to go are excluded. 

What are the limitations on annual multitrip insurance?

Most travel insurers offer comprehensive annual multitrip policies. They may offer a top tier option (eg “Comprehensive Plus” or “Gold”) but don’t tend to offer annual versions of basic cover or medical-only policies. 

When buying your policy, insurers often give you the option to select the maximum trip length that you’d like to cover. Maximum trip length for the multitrip policies included in our review are in the table below.

How is annual multitrip different to single-trip insurance? 

There is usually little difference in the cover or product features of single trip and multitrip policies. Many insurers have a basic or medical-only insurance option and a comprehensive option available for both annual multitrip and single-trip insurance. And as usual, it’s essential you read the product disclosure statement (PDS) and understand what you are and aren’t covered for before you purchase. 

Excess also works in the same way for both annual multitrip and single-trip insurance. You agree on an excess with the insurer before buying your policy and if you make a claim, you just have to pay the excess, and the insurer takes care of the rest. 

The multitrip option can sometimes be stricter on length of trip – so that is something to be mindful of. Most insurers give you the option to choose from different maximum trip lengths to tailor a multitrip policy to your plans, but some only have one option for maximum trip length.

Make sure you read the PDS to understand the limitations before you buy. 

How we compare

We obtain prices from a third party that collects travel insurance quotes for single- and multitrip policies. Each quarter they release a new batch of quotes, for the same set of “market representative” customer scenarios. 

We wanted to compare the cost of an annual multitrip policy against the cost of several single-trip policies taken out to cover repeated trips taken throughout the year. To do this we, took a “compare the pair” approach. First we found the average cost, from December 2024, for all multitrip policies for a given scenario (say, a couple in their 60s with no dependents traveling to Canada). 

We then found the corresponding average prices for single trip policies, for the same customer scenario. To represent repeat visits, we calculated the average quote from subsequent quarters throughout 2025 simulating four “trips” across the year. When this still didn’t show good value, we doubled this average quote in the first, second, third and then fourth quarters to simulate up to eight trips per year.

We then added those averages together to estimate the cost of multiple single-trip policies. All up we compared 581 sets of premiums. Each single-trip scenario was then assessed with up to eight repeat visits throughout the year, for a total 4648 comparisons.

We then compared the cumulative price of the single trip policies with the price of the individual annual multitrip policy purchased in December 2024.

---

Jane Bardell

Jane Bardell is a Content producer in the Insurance and utilities team. She writes about home, car, pet and health insurance. Previously at CHOICE, she checked facts, figures and statistics as a Verifier with the Editorial and investigations team. Jane has a Bachelor of Science from the University of New South Wales.  Find Jane on LinkedIn.

Jane Bardell is a Content producer in the Insurance and utilities team. She writes about home, car, pet and health insurance. Previously at CHOICE, she checked facts, figures and statistics as a Verifier with the Editorial and investigations team. Jane has a Bachelor of Science from the University of New South Wales.  Find Jane on LinkedIn.