Flight compensation vs travel insurance: which pays what

Flight compensation vs travel insurance is a question with a clean answer: they are separate things and you can often have both. The regulation pays a fixed sum because the airline disrupted you. Insurance pays your actual losses. One does not cancel the other, and an insurer that says otherwise is describing its policy, not the law.

Flight compensation vs travel insurance: two different promises

Compensation under Regulation 261/2004 comes from the airline. It is fixed at €250, €400 or €600 by distance, and it does not care what your trip cost or what you lost. The airline owes it because it let you down.

Travel insurance comes from a company you paid a premium to. It covers a list of things written in the policy: a missed connection, an unused hotel night, a cancelled excursion, sometimes a fixed sum for a long delay. It pays against receipts, up to a limit, minus an excess.

The first is a right. The second is a contract. That difference explains almost everything else.

Can you claim both for the same flight?

Usually yes, for different losses. Nothing in the regulation stops you claiming from an insurer as well, and most policies say the same in reverse.

What you cannot do is collect twice for one loss. If the airline reimburses the hotel it left you in, and the insurer pays for that same hotel, the insurer will want its payment back. Policies say this in a clause about "recovery from another source". It is fair, and it is normal.

So the practical shape is this. Take the fixed compensation from the airline. Take the care costs from the airline too, since it owes them. Take from the insurer the things the airline does not owe: the missed hotel at the far end, the tour you paid for and never took, the connection on a separate booking.

What insurance covers that the regulation does not

This is where a policy earns its money, and it is a longer list than people expect:

• Onward bookings on a separate ticket. The regulation follows one booking to its final destination. An insurer may cover the connection you bought yourself.
• Prepaid nights and tickets you never used. The airline owes nothing for the villa you lost.
• Medical costs and lost baggage beyond the airline's liability.
• Delays under three hours, which pay nothing under the regulation. A travel insurance flight delay benefit often starts at two or four hours instead.
• Disruptions the regulation does not reach, such as a flight between two countries outside Europe on a non-EU carrier.

What the regulation covers that insurance does not

The traffic runs the other way too:

• A fixed payment with no receipts. €250 to €600 per passenger for the disruption itself.
• No excess and no premium. You have already paid nothing for it.
• No claim history. Using this right does not raise anyone's renewal quote.
• A duty of care with no cap. Meals, calls and a hotel for as long as the wait runs.
• A window measured in years, not the notification window of a fortnight that a policy imposes.

Which should you claim first?

Start with the airline, for two reasons. Its money is fixed and it is not discretionary, so the outcome does not depend on a policy schedule. And most insurers ask what the airline paid before settling anyway, so doing it in this order avoids doing it twice.

Claim from the insurer at the same time for anything on the list above that the airline does not owe. There is no need to wait for the airline to answer first, and waiting only eats into the notification window most policies impose.

Watch the notification window

Here is the one deadline that genuinely catches people. Insurance policies often require notice within seven, fourteen or twenty-eight days of the disruption. Miss it and a valid claim can be refused on timing alone.

Compare that with the regulation, where the window runs from one year to six depending on the country. The right that lasts longest is the one people rush, and the one that expires in a fortnight is the one they leave until they get home.

Tell the insurer early, even if you do not yet know the size of the claim.

The paperwork both of them want

Collect once, use twice. Keep the booking confirmation, the boarding passes, the airline's message with its timestamp, and every receipt from the disruption. Photograph the departure board. Ask the airline for the cause in writing while someone is still at the desk.

That single set of documents supports the airline claim, the insurance claim and, if it comes to it, a regulator's file. Our delay guide and cancellation guide set out what the airline owes in each case, and the refund guide covers the money for the ticket itself.

To see whether the airline half of this is worth anything on your flight, our free flight check reads the record in about two minutes.