Best Travel Insurance in Texas for 2026

Galveston: America’s Drive-To Cruise Capital

The Port of Galveston hit a significant milestone in 2024: 1.5 million cruise passengers, making it the fourth-busiest cruise port in North America. With projections of 1.75 million passengers and over 400 sailings in 2025, officials expect Galveston to become the third-busiest cruise port in the country. A fourth cruise terminal is opening in November 2025 to handle the growth, bringing MSC Cruises to Texas for the first time.

What makes Galveston unique isn’t just its size; it’s the market it serves. More than 30 million people live within a 300-mile radius, including Houston, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Little Rock. This makes Galveston the premier “drive-to” cruise market in the central United States. Most passengers arrive by car, not plane.

How Drive-To Changes Your Insurance Needs

When you’re flying to a cruise port, flight cancellation and delay coverage is critical. When you’re driving, the calculus changes. You’re far less likely to miss your ship due to transportation issues (no connecting flights to miss, no airline weather delays). But you do face different risks: car trouble on the drive down, traffic accidents that delay arrival, or personal circumstances that arise during a potentially multi-hour drive.

Where do Galveston cruises go? The Western Caribbean dominates, with about 35% of sailings heading to Cozumel and 25% to Costa Maya. Other popular destinations include Roatan (Honduras), Belize, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Disney, Norwegian, and now MSC all operate out of Galveston.

Hurricane Season: The Gulf Coast Reality

Sixty-six hurricanes have hit Texas since the 1850s. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 caused $125 billion in damage. The Gulf Coast from Brownsville to Beaumont faces annual hurricane risk, with the season running from June through November and peak activity in August and September.

For travel insurance purposes, hurricane coverage in Texas works the same way it does in Florida: timing is everything. Travel insurance only covers hurricanes as “unforeseen events.” Once the National Hurricane Center names a storm, it becomes a “foreseeable event,” and any policy purchased after that point will not cover claims related to that specific storm.

What Hurricane Coverage Actually Covers

When hurricanes affect your travel, coverage typically kicks in under several scenarios: your destination becomes uninhabitable or is under mandatory evacuation, your cruise itinerary is significantly changed due to the storm, your flights are cancelled, or your Texas home is rendered uninhabitable (requiring you to cancel or return early from a trip). Some policies specifically cover situations where NOAA issues a hurricane warning for your destination.

What’s NOT covered: fear of an approaching storm (without evacuation orders), deciding not to cruise because a hurricane might develop somewhere in the Gulf, or voluntary changes to your plans based on forecasts alone. If you want flexibility to cancel for these “worried about the weather” reasons, you need Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) coverage.

Texas-Specific: Windstorm Insurance and Your Home

Here’s something Texas coastal residents need to understand: travel insurance and home insurance work together during hurricane season. If you live in one of the 14 Texas Gulf Coast counties covered by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA), including Galveston, Brazoria, Jefferson, and Cameron counties, your homeowners policy may exclude windstorm damage. You likely have separate windstorm coverage through TWIA.

Travel insurance can help if your home is damaged while you’re away. If a hurricane renders your primary residence uninhabitable, that’s typically a covered reason for trip interruption (helping pay to get home early) or trip cancellation (if you haven’t left yet). This bidirectional protection matters when you live in hurricane country.

Crossing into Mexico: 28 Options, One Critical Rule

Texas has more Mexico border crossings than any other state, 28 in total. From El Paso to Brownsville, the Texas-Mexico border stretches over 1,200 miles. Major crossings include El Paso/Ciudad Juárez, Laredo/Nuevo Laredo (the busiest commercial crossing in North America), McAllen/Reynosa, Brownsville/Matamoros, and Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras.

Whether you’re making a day trip to Nuevo Laredo, heading to Monterrey for business, or driving deep into mainland Mexico, there’s one absolutely non-negotiable insurance rule.

Getting Mexican Auto Insurance

You can purchase Mexican auto insurance online before your trip (recommended) or from insurance offices near the border crossings. Online purchases are typically cheaper and give you time to review coverage options. Costs depend on vehicle value, trip length, and coverage level, but expect to pay starting around $20-25 per day for basic liability. Complete coverage options are available for newer vehicles.

Key documents you’ll need beyond insurance: a valid passport or passport card, vehicle registration and title (in your name, or with a notarized letter from the owner), and, if traveling beyond the border zone (roughly 12-20 miles into Mexico), a Temporary Vehicle Import Permit (TIP) and FMM tourist card. You can obtain these at the border or apply online in advance.

Travel Medical Insurance for Mexico Trips

Beyond auto insurance, consider your medical coverage. Most US health insurance plans provide limited or no coverage in Mexico. For day trips to border towns, you may decide the risk is acceptable. For longer trips or travel into mainland Mexico, a travel medical policy can protect you from significant medical expenses. This is especially important if you’re heading to more remote areas where evacuation could be necessary.

CFAR and Texas: What You Can (and Can’t) Get

Good news for Texas travelers: unlike New York (which bans CFAR entirely), Cancel for Any Reason coverage is generally available to Texas residents. This matters because CFAR is the only way to get partial reimbursement when you cancel for reasons not covered by standard trip cancellation, like being worried about a developing hurricane that hasn’t triggered evacuation orders yet.

However, Texas does have some quirks. Some providers exclude rental car damage coverage for Texas residents. This means if you’re renting a car during your trip (whether in Mexico or elsewhere), you’ll want to verify that your travel insurance actually covers rental vehicle damage, or plan to purchase coverage through the rental company or your credit card.

CFAR requirements remain standard: you must purchase within 14-21 days of your initial trip payment, insure 100% of nonrefundable trip costs, and cancel at least 48 hours before departure. Reimbursement is typically 50-75% of covered expenses, not 100%.

The Texas Size Factor: When Domestic Travel Gets Serious

Texas is so large that domestic travel within the state can involve significant distances. El Paso to Beaumont is over 800 miles, farther than Chicago to New York. Dallas to Brownsville is 500+ miles. The drive from San Antonio to El Paso is 8 hours. When you’re traveling these kinds of distances, especially for events with nonrefundable costs, travel insurance starts making sense even for “domestic” trips.

Your existing health insurance covers you anywhere in the US, so medical coverage is less critical for domestic travel. But trip cancellation protection can be valuable for expensive bookings, such as destination weddings in Marfa, hunting trips to South Texas, ski vacations to the Panhandle, or business conferences in Houston. If you’ve got high nonrefundable costs, protection makes sense regardless of whether you’re crossing state lines.

Practical Shopping Tips for Texas Travelers

1. Buy cruise insurance early during hurricane season. If you’re booking a Galveston cruise between June and November, purchase travel insurance the same day you book. Don’t wait to see what develops in the Gulf, by then it’s too late.
2. Compare independent policies to cruise line offerings. Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and other cruise lines sell their own insurance, but independent policies often provide better value and avoid potential conflicts of interest. Compare coverage limits, exclusions, and costs.
3. Get Mexican auto insurance before you cross. Whether you’re crossing at El Paso, Laredo, or Brownsville, have your Mexican insurance documentation in hand before you reach the border. Purchase online in advance for better rates and less stress.
4. Check rental car damage exclusions. Texas is one of several states where rental car damage coverage may be excluded from travel insurance policies. Verify your coverage before assuming you’re protected.
5. Consider CFAR for hurricane season flexibility. Standard coverage only kicks in when evacuations are ordered or destinations become uninhabitable. CFAR lets you cancel for any reason, including “there’s a storm in the Gulf and I don’t want to risk it”, and get 50-75% back.
6. Understand the drive-to advantage. When cruising from Galveston, you have more control over your arrival than flyers do. Use this to your advantage, arrive the day before and stay near the port. This reduces the risk of missed departures and lets you prioritize other coverage areas.
7. Remember bidirectional coverage. Travel insurance protects you if a hurricane hits your Texas home while you’re traveling. If your home becomes uninhabitable, that’s a covered reason to return early or cancel a future trip.

The Bottom Line for Texas Travelers

Texas travel insurance needs are shaped by three major factors: your access to Galveston’s booming cruise port, your exposure to Gulf Coast hurricanes, and your proximity to Mexico through more border crossings than any other state.

The most critical takeaways: buy early during hurricane season (June-November) because once a storm is named, it’s too late. Never cross into Mexico without Mexican auto insurance; your Texas policy doesn’t count, and the consequences are severe. And take advantage of Galveston’s drive-to accessibility while ensuring you have appropriate cruise coverage for medical evacuation and trip interruption.

Texas gives you access to Caribbean cruises, Mexican adventures, and enough domestic territory to make intrastate travel an event. Make sure you’re adequately protected for everything.

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