Budget Direct Comprehensive Travel Insurance

My Samsonite $600 suitcase damaged not useable Budget Direct depreciated it 60% deducted their $200 and gave $40 It took me about 5 hours to hound them and chase them A very expensive mistake I won’t be making again Show details

We lodged a travel insurance claim in July and provided all the documents requested. Over time, we were asked to supply additional information, including repeated requests for the same documents, which we provided again. This back-and-forth continued for months and required a significant amount of time and effort, far exceeding the value of the… Read more

claim itself.

After six months, we were advised that the claim was declined because the loss of income did not exceed 15 days. This is extremely disappointing. If this was a basic eligibility requirement, it should have been communicated upfront rather than allowing the process to drag on for six months.

We also lodged an internal complaint, but to date we have not received any response.

The issue is not the claim being declined, but the unnecessary waste of time and effort caused by the poor handling of the claim.

Terrible experience. Got sick overseas and caught in major floods, yet Budget Direct refused to cover key parts of my claim despite all documentation and it being covered under the policy. Poor communication and zero accountability. Wouldn’t recommend. Show details

We flew with HiSky Airline on July 2025. Our booking clearly included 3 check-in bags and 1 cabin bag, confirmed by both booking website and HiSky customer support. However, at the airport, staff claimed no baggage was included and forced us to pay… Read more ·  1

again for all our luggage. Despite showing proof of payment, they refused to honor the booking. We spent extra money unnecessarily, and weeks later, no refund or real assistance has been provided. This was stressful and extremely disappointing for a family trip. Travelers be aware: Budget Direct Travel Insurance will NOT cover these kind of issue.

I honestly can’t speak highly enough of Budget Direct and their incredible team. During one of the toughest times in my life—when my wife had a medical emergency while we were in Bali—they showed a level of care, compassion, and professionalism that I never expected from an insurance company. The customer care team was unbelievably… Read more ·  1

supportive—they spoke to me with such warmth and empathy, just like a family member would. It’s rare to find that kind of human connection in customer service.

The medical team and other departments were also efficient, kind, and genuinely caring throughout the entire process. Because of this experience, I’ve now moved all my car and home insurance over to Budget Direct, and I plan to stay with them for life.

If I could give a million stars, I would. Thank you, Budget Direct, for going above and beyond. You’ve earned a customer for life.

After decades of travel and needing to make only one claim in the past with another insurance company which left us feeling frustrated and disillusioned it was a delight to deal with Budget when my husband fell, broke his hip and was hospitalised for 3 weeks interstate. Budget contacted us before we were in touch as the cruise ship on which he… Read more ·  1

fell had instigated a claim on our behalf. In the weeks in hospital they were in touch several times as was World Wide travel, an associated company that helps with booking airfares. Once we had lodged a claim we heard from them within 2 weeks which was in contrast with the previous company which took 4 weeks each time we had contact with them. Once the claim was processed the money was immediately paid into our bank and we were most satisfied with the overall outcome and would highly recommend the company. We would use them again.

So happy with Budget direct travel insurance so changing my car insurance to there – So happy with Budget direct travel insurance We were stranded in Bali due to volcano . So easily contact them and got good information .no more Jetstar but yes to Budget direct So smoothly processing to claim the travel insurance !! Show details ·  1

Beware of Budget Direct travel insurance and READ all the fine print of their policies. They may sell cheap travel insurance, but when I had to cancel a very expensive trip of a lifetime due to a very legitimate medical issue that came up, they refused the claim. Luckily my husband went with 1Cover travel insurance for his costs for the same trip.… Read more

1Cover travel insurance paid out immediately, Budget Direct refused even after I appealed their decision. So, we are over $12000 out of pocket due to this excuse for a travel insurance company.

Budget Direct: Terrible service, shady fine print — avoid. Lost baggage claim, thousands in missing items. Budget Direct’s communication was appalling, paperwork full of errors, and when I finally spoke to someone, they clearly didn’t care. They denied items for weak reasons, depreciated others by 60%, and their decisions were wildly… Read more

inconsistent. I’ve had to escalate the whole thing to AFCA just to get a response.

Honestly, I don’t trust a single positive review here — feels like bots or paid PR. Save yourself the stress and go elsewhere.

Budget Direct are a waste of time & money - they do everything they can to delay the process & make you lose any hope. This is the first time I have had to make a claim with Budget Direct & it will also be the last as I wont ever be using them again! Claim lodged 30th December 2024 as I had to cancel my holiday due to a family member being… Read more

diagnosed with cancer & have yet to receive the final decision. Even had my claim closed at one stage due to me not supplying them the required information however I was the one waiting for an update. The latest update I have received is that my claim now needs to be assessed by their medical team despite me submitting the medical evidence signed by a doctor back on the 30th January! And then every time you receive a new update you can add 10 business days to their time frame for a response. 4 months to process a straight forward claim with all the evidence provided is beyond a joke! Definitely would not recommend to anyone

No cover for rescheduled flights resulting in missing connections – Budget Direct will not cover rescheduled or cancelled flights for mechanical reasons. There is no way to insure against this event. This defeats one of the purposes of travel insurance. Their travel insurance policy is expensive (and not very effective) toilet paper at best. Show details

Garbage, woeful, AVOID – Disgraceful experience. Beware. Simply save yourself the headaches and GO ELSEWHERE. We purchased a travel policy through the budget direct website, paid for it and received no confirmation and no policy. 2 weeks of phone calls and they insist they cannot issue a refund until the policy “uploads” into their system. To put it simply, we have no… Read more

refund and no policy. I have been told 3-5 business days from day one and being told the same thing 2 weeks later. Put these guys in the bin. Went through Medibank instead and policy was received IMMEDIATELY.

Not good enough – I purchased travel insurance 36 hours ago and still haven’t received my conformation. Rang them and they say they can’t view the policy. I did get an email but this shows I paid $401 and no pre existing illnesses. The policy I took out was for $621.94 and included pre existing illness. I need this sorted urgently and am not getting anywhere with Budget Direct. Show details

Almost two months since lodging my claim.still waiting – Budget direct still hasn’t completed my travel insurance claim. Submitted 22nd October 2023 but today 11th November. Keep dragging it and given to another bad review company cover more to handle my claim. She is taking forever to complete this. Claim number 1527197. I thought budget direct has excellent service as per their advertisements on the… Read more

TV and awards they won but when you want to make claim they take forever to finalise it. They keep saying 10 buisness days then once 10 business days finish they say 20 buisness days. Keep extending. Do they understand how long is that. Maybe they don’t have enough resources to handle claims.

Update 08.04.2025

Claim was declined. I lodged complaint to internal dispute resolution team in budget direct and underwriter Zurich.

They don’t care. They kept declining. Please do not buy cover more travel insurances and budget direct.

Buy AAMI. Easy and very helpful

Pathetic. Website errors leading to being charged multiple times – Deducted amount twice and now have to go through a long winded process of having my case investigated and amounts refunded. Website is useless and took the funds twice from my card with no confirmation of policy. Show details

Profits before people – I purchased a comprehensive travel policy long before CIOVID was a known event. Unhappily, our dream extended holiday to Iceland & Norway was cancelled. The airlines and most of our hotel bookings were happily refunded but I had used hotels.com and bookings.com for over $3,600 worth of bookings (it was to be a long vacation!). Both of these… Read more

companies refused to refund the money and offered vouchers instead. I did not seek the vouchers, nor did I want them. The original vouchers were due to expire in May 2021 but were then automatically extended - not at my request. I decided that enough is enough as we are not prepared to undertake this trip any longer, as the virus is continually evolving and it is not worth risking our health or being stuck overseas due to unforeseen border closures.

Budget Direct have refused to honour my claim because "You have been offered credits for the bookings you are claiming and accepting these is considered as recovering the costs from the source and a step which you could take to reduce your loss. Therefore, the costs you have claimed are outside the scope of the policy."

It must be noted that the vouchers (credits) are site specific. I can't use them anywhere else but only in 6 hotel in Norway and Iceland.

Last year I called them and told them I did not want the vouchers and I was told that if I declined them I was not making sufficient efforts to recover the costs. So with Budget Direct you are damned whichever way you go!!

They have set it up that you cannot win! It is not possible to get a fair and reasonable judgement from them.

Fancy ads - cheap policies but so not worth it. If anyone from Budget Direct reads these reviews my claim number is LUO036212-01.

I am now off to the ombudsman.

Don't Fall For The Cheap Price! Better Off With No Insurance! Least I Would Have Saved Time And Money – It's was easy to purchase and a good price and gave peace of mind for the trip... Until something went wrong and I had to claim. It's been over 1 year and they still haven't paid me for my claim. My bag was lost for 3 days from the airline I flew with (lost/stolen luggage was meant to be covered for up to $600) and I had to purchase clothes,… Read more

toiletries etc.. Which were meant to be covered but no... The process they make you go through to get the cover is ridiculous. I sent them papers of proof from the airline that the bag was lost, I sent them receipt screenshots on my bank statement but no they kept asking for that stuff in emails prolonging the process til I gave up. Well I haven't given up Budget so you can cop another bad review. I seem to notice a pattern with many other customers here too. Not a good look. Would not recommend. Don't fall for the good price.

Didn’t pay out for Covid affected travel – It’s the first time we used Budget Direct for our travel cover. Our holiday was booked last March. We flew to the UK, then we were due to have 10 days in Dubai. Whilst we were in the UK, the Australian government issued a statement for all residents of Oz to return home. We contacted Flight Centre, whom we our booking with, and they wanted $8,500… Read more

to get us back. We then contacted Budget Direct who asked if we could go to the airline direct and get it cheaper and they would cover it. We managed to get it sorted for about $2,500. We have since been refused a refund. After me complaining they said I had to get a letter off the airline declaring they hadn’t already given us a refund?? The airline won’t respond either, so we are left out of pocket. We will never use them again.

They are a scam – Will not cover my travel losses and will not return my policy premium ,no help if you phone them.I feel this company is in the business taking money and then relinquishing all responsibility and service.please save your money and go elsewhere. Show details

Terrible Service – My partner and I had booked a trip to the UK so that I could go home to visit my family and decided to align this with a much needed holiday. UK to Portugal and Italy, then back to Australia. COVID-19 hit and understandably flight providers, hotels, insurers were all over the place and noone knew what to do / to expect. But the assumption was… Read more

that if your insurance policy covered epidemics you were covered...and that ultimately all good businesses would "do the right thing'

Our trip consisted of 5 flights and 5 hotels.

Before cancelling anything or making a claim I called budget direct and queried whether I should accept vouchers when offered and was told I should as that was me "taking reasonable steps to reduce the loss" ...even though I didn't want any vouchers.

I provided as much detail as possible to Budget Direct. Then they wanted more detail, and more, and more.

I called, emailed, facebooked the various hotels and airlines and told them that as borders were closed we would have to cancelled our trip and requested a refund. Most of our bookings were non refundable.. I was offered vouchers. I politely gathered the details and (other than Qantas) I did not accept the vouchers or decline them... I just took note of everything to provide to Budget Direct.

This was in 2020 when COVID hadn't been around long and everyone was hopeful it wouldn't last long. I price checked all my flights and accomodation and detailed to Budget Direct that if I completed the same holiday exactly 1 year later every single aspect (flight and hotel) was more expensive... therefore any vouchers provided would not allow me to re-book our trip. It would be cheaper for them to honour my claim than for me to re-book a year later and try to claim the difference from them under amendment fees.

"The expense for rescheduling your trip prior to departure provided the cost of rescheduling does not exceed the cost of cancellation"

I accepted a voucher from Qantas based on Budget Direct's earlier advice but when I queried with them during the claim process whether I could in fact get a refund I was told I had to contact Qantas again and investigate myself. (Qantas were wonderful)

I have chased down and recovered just under 60% of the total spent on our trip myself and if this isn't doing everything I can to reduce our claim I don't know what is.

I have 2 flights where there is no recovery / voucher offered and 3 vouchers offered in hotels across Portugal and Italy that I cannot recover.

Budget Direct have responded to me today that "unfortunately they cannot provide coverage for my claim". But they will reassess "Should you be unable to use these credit notes by their expiry dates"

So ... what are my options Budget Direct?

- Borders are closed and even if they reopened as a Australian Temporary Resident (but not a citizen) I cannot currently leave then re-enter. - I have to wait until these vouchers inevitably expire before you will even look at refunding my money? Despite it costing you less to honour my claim than for me to rebook? - If the borders reopen late next year or potentially 2 years+ after the original trip was booked I'm expected to book the exact same trip just so I can use these vouchers? Despite associated costs such as new flights to Europe being higher and personally being in different circumstances ? If I choose not to use the vouchers do I forfeit my claim? - All whilst budget direct isn't offering any new holiday insurance policies to cover this supposed new Europe trip of mine?

I will be escalating with Budget Direct and contacting AFCA.

So incredibly disappointed. I have used Budget Direct for all my travel insurance and home insurance to date.

I have no faith that this company would pay any claim – Canstar rating suggested this was a good value policy and it seemed so on purchase. In December 2020 and January 2021 I arranged our annual Europe trip to see our family. I took out travel insurance in early February. In May it became clear we would not be able to leave Australia as planned in September. I set about the task of claiming refunds… Read more

for the various airline and accommodation providers and obtained many refunds and flight credits. However one accommodation provider and Ryanair would not issue any refund so I made a claim. Budget direct advised me to keep requesting refunds from both organisations as they would not pay anything until this was done and I was informed by Budget Direct that this would probably take a lot of time. I did this and eventually received a refund from the accommodation provider. The only option to me to communicate with Ryanair was via their website where I could only apply for a refund of the tax on the airfare. To date I have received no reply from Ryanair (which I told Budget Direct last week) and today I received an email from Budget Direct stating they had closed my case. They have paid nothing.

Save your money! – Like most others here my experience with Budget Direct has been lamentable Legitimate claim (pre-covid) and 12 months later still waiting for them to finalise. I guess this will be one ore for the Ombudsman. Sickening. Show details

Really Poor Experience – Really poor experience with this company. I was unable to fly due to COVID19 and they refused the claim, stating I should have known at the time of booking that it would be a world event. Even though at the time it was only in china. Also no refund given on premium even though i never left the country! They are crooks!!! Don't bother with this insurance company Show details

Months of dispute to finally be paid out – I purchased a travel insurance policy just before budget direct changed their PDS not to cover pandemics. They initially refused to pay my claim. After numerous emails and some help from a member on this page, they agreed to partially pay some of the claim. They were deliberately obstructive and made the process unnecessarily complex to put people… Read more

off. Eventually we were to AFCA and they finally came around.

They agreed to pay some of the claim “in good faith” as long as we agreed to waive rights to rebookings/credits.

If you got in before the PDS change I’d encourage you to keep at them and go to AFCA. Despite wasting hours of precious time on this, I’m glad we were paid out based on principle. Thanks to the member who helped me out!

Budget Direct makes mockery of insurance – After lodging a claim for a policy bought before COVID started, I sought to claim back part of the cancelled domestic trip. Budget Direct said I should have anticipated the problem! Unless you have a personal crystal ball, don't trust this insurer. Show details

DON'T!! Just don't do it!! – Budget Direct are the gold standard for being an extremely difficult company to deal with. They turned a simple and straight forward claim into a drawn out, delayed, cumbersome and frustrating process. In summary ........ - Caught up with COVID travel booking cancellations - Very small claim of less than $700. - Request after request from them… Read more

for further information - Waiting, waiting, waiting for BD to respond - Around and around in circles

They don’t work with you but work against you, putting hurdle after hurdle in your path to wear you down. Save your money and a whole load of pain and use a different provider.

Fortunately for me, in the end I had them on a technicality and they eventually after several months, paid up but what a frustrating journey to get there.

Thankfully my Budget Direct Home and Contents insurance came up for renewal this during this nightmare and I cancelled that and went with another provider. After my experience with Budget Direct, there is no way I'd be trusting them with my home. They’re called BUDGET for a reason.

Horrible, just horrible.

Horrible service, deceitful and fraudulent when reviewing our claim. Recommend no one uses them in the future – We had a trip booked to South Africa in March 2020 which obviously had to be cancelled due to COVID 19. We were due a refund of $6000 and were offered $32 after our $400 excess was accounted for. Budget direct claimed as we were offered credits from the companies we used we were not at a financial loss (we are unable to use these credits). This is… Read more

not mentioned anywhere in the PDS we received at the time of booking the insurance. What is mentioned in the PDS is that "they will pay a benefit under this section of the cancellation of your trip is necessary and unavoidable as a result of... you being an unable to travel because of travel restrictions imposed on you after an epidemic". Somehow they believe this doesn't apply, we will be pursing this further with the AFCA and legal action if necessary

Stranded and left to rot – Good Morning Taking out Travel Insurance some time before Covid we felt comfortable leaving in early March from Brisbane. Things went haywire in India from the 25th March with everything shut down. 5 months later we managed to escape at the last minute , last 2 seats on a repatriation flight to Canada ( my wife has a Canadian passport ) , no… Read more

flights or way to get to Australia from Trivanduram in sth India. After reaching Canada and having family here we put in a claim for Flights cancelled and accommodation etc whilst in India....ha ha....they asked for all our receipts etc and came back with some annoying poor excuse to not help us at all. Call the help number etc... we had tried in India to no avail as we had very poor facilities. This method of them not being able to contact one department to another is just a scam not to pay out a legitimate claim. We will not just let them wear us down, we have to get Legal action and report negligence to the Ombudsman, please be aware of these tactics before any consideration of taking on Insurances with this company. Our travel agency STA has now gone into administration owing us some $4500 which should be covered under our insurance!!! Wake up and do the right thing.

Premium price OK but not much else – I have used Budget Direct Travel Insurance only once for a trip to New Zealand. The premium was reasonable given that my wife and I are both seniors. However due to bad weather and road closures we had to abandon part of our trip that involved a Trans Alpine train trip to return to Christchurch. At significant extra cost ( i.e no refund on train… Read more

travel, extra accommodation, and air fare) we made the return to Christchurch by air.in order to be there in time for our booked air travel back to Melbourne.

On making a claim for our disrupted travels, this was denied because we returned to Australia on time. I think the policy conditions could be more clear about 'travel disruptions and returning on time".

We will seek an alternative travel insurer for any further travel when permitted by Covid restrictions.

Total joke - lies & more lies - class action worthy for sure ! – Your travel insurance is pathetic just like your customer service. I will never ever use Budget Direct for anything again. Removing all my policies and spreading the word to as many people as possible about your disgraceful treatment of customers. Useless is too kind. Your complaints process is broken as well. Negative stars from us. Show details

A class action lawsuit needs to be filed against Budget Direct Travel – After literally weeks of researching travel insurance companies and reading PDS', i purchased an expensive comprehensive travel insurance policy with Budget Direct in May 2019 (A LONG TIME BEFORE COVID), for a round the world trip commencing December 2019 ending June 2020. Upon returning home in March due to COVID, i lodged a claim for some… Read more

medical expenses incurred (under $300) and cancellation fees. The gall of these people is despicable. They deliberately delay the process by sending multiple requests for "further information" weeks apart, rather than asking for all the information at once. Also, they keep asking for the same information i have already provided, again weeks after it was ALREADY PROVIDED. I have been waiting 5 months now and getting absolutely nowhere; clearly their tactic is to keep delaying and avoiding until customers give up. The behavior is absolutely abhorrent and I have no idea how these employees and managers sleep at night. I am out thousands of dollars plus HOURS of my time, and yet I WILL NOT GIVE UP because they need to be held to account. And for god's sake, Budget Direct, don't you dare leave a comment saying you "are sorry to hear about my experience and can understand my frustration". You should be utterly ashamed for earning a living defrauding people, and I hope you personally lose thousands of dollars one day and understand what you;re doing to people. I have already contacted the Ombudsman, and i suggest everyone else do the same.

WORST TRAVEL INSURANCE EVER ! DELIBERATE DELAY TACTICS – Pre covid we bought Budget Direct Travel Insurance and read the PDS thoroughly to ensure we had cover for the trip of a life time. Even rang to confirm we had full cover for pandemics as in early stages of cases taking hold - "of course you do stated the well versed call centre employee". Covid hits further locations and we again checked and it… Read more

was all good as the PDS clearly talks about cover for "disease & pandemic outbreaks" - phew we thought (and yes we paid for insurance cover before your pandemic cut off date, well before). Again we called Budget Direct and again told yes you are covered 100 % - Don't stress she told us almost like we were being over concerned (and yes we took screen shots of your "chat agent) so cant wait for you to tell me that didn't happen. Then things got worse and all of a sudden our cruise line cancelled 24 hours before departure & the rest of our trip went into oblivion as Europe closed down. Sadly we had to submit a claim with all info and screen shots the - full shebang. Weeks then months pass & we start to wonder why taking so long ? In the mean time we did our absolute best to get refunds from various travel companies most of which are brilliant and refunded except for Italy component which refused refunds but again that's fair & we didn't worry as we thought we were covered. Cruise line was awesome unlike Budget Direct. Still no answer from Budget after multiple calls and emails which go into hyper space. We then finally get a letter stating you are not covered as "YOU" chose to cancel. TOTAL LIES as the cruise cancelled and Europe went into full lock down. According to budget you still could have gone - wow really & how could we have done that Budget with no boat and boarders fully locked. Your claims process is not in line with your PDS at all & you do not standby your customers. Your customer service is geared around manipulation of PDS and you are deliberately slowing claims hoping people will give up. Don't bother complaining as they refuse to talk to you and you get the complete run around. Emails go un - answered. It has ended up Budget Direct have only added to an already stressful situation. Shame on you Budget Direct. I look forward to proving you guys wrong as we did not cancel and we are covered 100% And stop using the wording "We are waiting for the under writers to confirm" as it is code for we have no idea what is happening and you don't stand by our PDS which is in black & white. P.S DO NOT USE BUDGET FOR TRAVEL INSURANCE YOU WILL GET NO SATISFACTION IN YOUR TIME OF NEED. Don't waste your money.

Waste of space- never insure with this mob – I had taken out a comprehensive travel policy on 6th of Feb, 2020 for a trip to Europe (at a time when their PDS clearly mentioned that it covers pandemics) and when I filed a claim on 27 of March 2020, got a response (6th of April 2020) that "We wish to advise you that we have completed the assessment of the claim, and unfortunately it has been… Read more

identified that the claim does not fall within the terms and conditions of the policy" and the basis of this assessment was "Any claim relating to an incident which you were aware of at the time you took out this insurance and which could reasonably be expected to lead to a claim."

I had to point out to the travel consultant (who are "supposedly" insurance experts in the travel industry) that their own PDS was not amended until 15th of March to exclude pandemic, so how would they expect an average person to reasonably know that a global pandemic will affect their travels!

After escalating and a lot of exchange of documents (a number of them resubmitted more than once), and a lot of reminders), the original decision was overruled and I got my full claim paid out on 4th of August 2020.

My question is: why did they reject my original claim based on a flimsy justification / irrational argument? I guess they expected me to just keep quiet and walk away.

Lesson: never insure with this organisation- they will make you run around come claim time.

Call centre gave misleading advice – At the end of January I took out insurance for travel to Japan. Within the cooling off period the COVID situation got worse,so I called the call centre to confirm any COVID related cancellation to Japan or hospital fees would be covered. The call centre staff assured me, “touch wood”, it would be covered and the COVID exclusions on their web site… Read more

only covered China . However the claim was denied as it was “Reasonably expected to lead to a claim”, completely contradicting their own staff’s earlier advice. Clearly it was a reasonable expectation that was not expected by their own experts until after the fact.

If they are not going to keep their word they could at least refund price of the useless policy.

Update - I found the copy of the PDS I downloaded and reviewed at the time, it clearly states coverage for cancellations due to epidemics. These guys are just plain theives.

Buyer beware – I purchased travel insurance from budget direct, i lost a bag containing 2 cameras and some other items on the last leg of a 10 month trip. BD would not pay as they claim i left the items unattended because i did not pick the bag up when getting off a train. That is called losing something!! Never again would I use budget direct. Show details