VRBO Travel Insurance: Is It Worth It?

Does VRBO Offer Travel Insurance?

Yes. When you book, VRBO offers travel protection plans from insurance providers it selects. Its travel insurance page lists the kinds of benefits on offer: trip cancellation and interruption for illness or injury, travel delays, natural disasters and extreme weather, and job loss. It doesn't publish the limits there. The provider, the price, and what each benefit pays depend on your booking, and they're in the plan documents shown at checkout.

VrboCare Is Not Travel Insurance

Every VRBO booking also comes with VrboCare at no extra charge. Formerly called the Book with Confidence Guarantee, it covers host-initiated cancellations, check-in problems, fraud, and listings that are significantly misrepresented, mainly by helping you rebook another stay. It doesn't reimburse you when you have to cancel because you're sick, a family member has an emergency, or a storm hits. That's what trip cancellation insurance is for.

Is VRBO's Cancellation Protection Worth It?

On a VRBO with a strict cancellation policy, some trip cancellation protection is usually worth having, because cancelling late can cost you the whole prepayment. The real question is which plan. Before you add VRBO's plan at checkout, open its plan documents and check:

1. What a cancellation pays back: only the VRBO booking, or your flights and other prepaid costs too?
2. The emergency medical and medical evacuation limits, which matter most if you're traveling abroad.
3. The covered reasons: your illness, a family emergency, weather, job loss.
4. Whether pre-existing conditions are covered, and how soon after booking you have to buy.
5. Whether a Cancel For Any Reason option is available.
6. The price, as a share of what the plan actually insures.

For comparison, our Standard plan insures the whole prepaid, non-refundable trip cost you insure, up to $100,000, with up to $25,000 in emergency medical and up to $250,000 in medical evacuation. It covers pre-existing conditions if you buy within 14 days of your first trip payment, and it costs 7% of the trip cost you insure. A separate Cancel For Any Reason plan, at 10.8%, reimburses 60% of your prepaid cost whatever the reason if you cancel at least 48 hours before departure; it isn't sold in every state.

How VRBO's Cancellation Policies Actually Work

Unlike most hotels, VRBO lets each host choose the cancellation policy for their listing, from flexible policies that refund in full until shortly before check-in to strict ones that refund little or nothing once check-in is weeks away. The exact terms are on the listing and your booking confirmation.

Under a strict policy, getting the flu a week before your trip can cost you the entire prepayment. Travel insurance is what recovers it.

What Travel Insurance Reimburses on a VRBO Cancellation

A Standard travel insurance policy with trip cancellation coverage refunds up to 100% of your total insured trip cost (maximum $100,000) when you cancel for a covered reason. The definition of trip cost is broader than just the VRBO booking:

• The non-refundable portion of your VRBO stay
• Non-refundable flights
• Non-refundable rental car reservations
• Prepaid excursions, tours, and event tickets

The catch: the reason you cancel has to appear on the policy's list of covered reasons. The main ones on the TravelProtection.insure Base plans include your own illness or injury, a family member's serious illness or death, job loss after at least two years of continuous employment, jury duty or a subpoena, a traffic accident enroute to departure, your destination being made uninhabitable or inaccessible by a natural disaster (if you bought within 14 days of your first trip payment), and a mandatory evacuation at your destination.

If your reason isn't on the covered list (think "I just changed my mind" or "my friend backed out"), a Standard plan won't reimburse you. That's where a Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) plan comes in. Learn more about CFAR →

When VRBO Cancellations Are Not Covered

These are the cases where a Standard policy won't reimburse a VRBO cancellation:

• Foreseeable events. If a hurricane is already named and tracking toward your destination when you buy the policy, it isn't a covered reason. Buy before the news.
• Pre-existing medical conditions, unless you bought the policy within 14 days of your first trip payment and were medically able to travel when you bought it. Both conditions must be met for the pre-existing condition waiver to apply.
• "I changed my mind" cancellations without a CFAR plan.
• The host canceling on you for reasons unrelated to a covered event. VRBO's own refund policy applies in that case.
• Pandemics and epidemics, which are handled inconsistently across insurers.

Does VRBO Property Damage Protection Replace Travel Insurance?

No. These are completely different products, and it's one of the most common points of confusion on booking day. VRBO's Property Damage Protection (PDP) is a small fee that covers you if you accidentally damage the host's property, up to a set dollar limit. It does not refund your trip if you cancel. It does not cover medical emergencies. It does not pay for a replacement rental if the VRBO is uninhabitable when you arrive.

Think of it this way: PDP is for the host's property. Travel insurance is for your trip.