Flight-delay claim denial rates among South Korea’s largest non-life insurers varied more than elevenfold in the first seven months of 2026, raising questions about how policies that can look similar at the point of sale perform once customers seek payment.
DB Insurance denied 15.14% of claims under flight delay and cancellation cover from January through July. The corresponding rate was 5.63% at Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, 4.43% at Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance, 2.53% at KB Insurance and 1.30% at Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance.
The spread makes claims performance increasingly relevant to product selection. Premiums and headline benefit limits describe what a policy offers, while denial rates provide one signal of what happens when that cover is tested.
The carrier-level divide forms part of a broader increase in rejected travel claims. Claims received by the five insurers rose 8.2%, from 124,427 in 2023 to 134,636 in 2025. Denials increased 92% over the same period, from 2,247 to 4,306, lifting the overall denial rate from 1.81% to 3.20%.
That increase also outpaced the recovery in overseas travel. South Korean nationals made 29.58 million overseas departures in 2025, according to Ministry of Justice statistics, approximately 30% more than in 2023. The comparison does not measure insurance penetration because departures and insured trips are different measures, but it shows that denials grew much faster than both travel and submitted claims.
The insurance data was submitted by the five carriers to Democratic Party lawmaker Son Myung-soo, a member of the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee, and provided by South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service.
Flight delay and cancellation cover recorded a particularly steep increase. Claims under the benefit rose 78.3%, from 12,277 in 2023 to 21,892 in 2025, while denials climbed 251.9%, from 520 to 1,830. The denial rate almost doubled from 4.24% to 8.36%.
Checked baggage delay or loss produced a still higher refusal rate. Insurers denied 375 of the 2,299 claims filed in 2025, or 16.31%, more than twice the 6.11% recorded in 2023.
The pattern adds a measurable claims outcome to wider concerns about confusion over travel insurance cover, particularly where payment depends on precise definitions, delay thresholds and supporting documents.
In comments translated from Korean, Son said, “Because traveler insurance can be purchased easily, many consumers do not carefully review the terms of coverage.”
That places greater weight on how clearly insurers and distributors explain triggering events, exclusions and evidence requirements. A lower denial rate is not necessarily proof of broader cover or better claims handling, but a large unexplained difference can make otherwise similar products harder to compare.
Reason codes would provide the most useful next layer of disclosure. They could show whether claims were rejected because the loss fell outside the policy, the delay did not meet the required threshold, evidence was incomplete or a filing requirement was missed.
“As the traveler insurance market expands, there should be enhanced information provision so that consumers can easily compare the coverage conditions and actual payment or denial status by insurer,” Son said.
“Financial authorities also need to examine the reasons for the differences in denial rates between insurers and ensure that key coverage and exclusion clauses are clearly disclosed at the time of enrollment.”
