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What is Defaqto rating for travel insurance?

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When you buy a travel insurance policy, you want to know what you’re covered for. You’ll probably want a good quality policy too, not just the cheapest option.

So how do you find this out when you’re comparing travel insurance policies? One way is the Defaqto rating for travel insurance.

We explain what the Defaqto rating means, and how it works for travel insurance.

A travel insurance policy next to a laptop and phone

Defaqto evaluates financial products using a star rating. The company specialises in financial products, ranging from travel insurance to credit cards.

Defaqto bases its reviews on an analysis of the product’s features and benefits. This makes it different from other review sites as most of their reviews are based on customer opinion or feedback.

Drawing on over 25 years’ experience, Defaqto has analysed more than 43,0000 financial products and rated them from one to five. To ensure they always remain up to date, Defaqto ratings are updated each year.

The Defaqto ratings could help you to make an informed decision on the quality of the financial product you’re buying. You should also get a good idea of what features and benefits come with the policy.

Defaqto is an independent company too, so all product ratings are unbiased.

Defaqto ratings are based on the quality and comprehensiveness of the product. A panel of 60 experts look at a number of features of the products available, and the benefits analysed could change each year.

Defaqto looks at market trends and customer research to determine what features of a travel insurance policy are most important. This is what they then use to give their star ratings.

One star products are the worst, rising to five stars, which is the highest available rating.

The ratings are updated every year

Defaqto ratings and travel insurance

Defaqto evaluates the features of each travel insurance policy and provides a rating. This means you can make meaningful comparisons between different policies.

This can be crucial for finding policies which offer the most comprehensive cover. That way you know you're in safe hands if disaster strikes and you need to make a travel insurance claim.

For travel insurance, Defaqto looks at the level of cover the policy provides. For example, whether the policy you’re buying offers cancellation cover or not, or how much baggage cover is included.

To do this it has identified the 50 most important features of travel insurance. Defaqto then scores each policy against those features and gives it a rating from one to five.

What does the Defaqto star rating mean?

Star rating Features
One star
"Covers the basics, but the features the product provides aren’t great."
Two stars
"The product is below average, and the features are ok."
Three stars
"An average product with adequate features."
Four stars
"This is an above-average product and has a good level of features."
Five stars
"A high-quality product with a comprehensive level of features."

Keep in mind that Defaqto rates the product. The provider, customer service or the price of the product aren’t taken into account.

Defaqto star ratings for travel insurance don’t include customer service in its analysis.

It also doesn’t take price into account, meaning it’s down to you whether the level of cover you are getting is good value for money.

If a five star product is cheaper than a four star, your decision should probably be clear. But if a five star policy is more expensive than a four star, it’s down to you to decide it’s worth shelling out more for the highest level of cover.

We use the Defaqto rating to help you evaluate the insurance policies we compare.

Once you’ve entered your details for a travel insurance quote, you get a list of prices for your travel insurance policy.

You can then see the Defaqto rating, which gives you an indication of the quality of cover you get with the policy.

If you want to go for quality over price, you can filter your results by Defaqto rating. Once you have your prices list, select the Defaqto star rating you want your policy to be. It then sorts your results accordingly.

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