The Insurance

Insurance allows us to get back the equipment we lost in a raid. But how does it work? Is it really worth insuring what we bring into a raid? In what cases is it not worth it or does it not work? Let’s explore all these interesting aspects of this feature.

How does insurance work in Escape from Tarkov?

• Before starting a raid, you have the option to insure your equipment from the dedicated screen. It’s recommended to use the “Insure All” checkbox to ensure you don’t miss anything. After selecting “Insure All,” you can manually deselect any items you don’t want to insure by clicking on them. Additionally, you can insure items individually from your stash or inventory by right-clicking them and selecting “Insure.”
  

• If the insured items are not extracted from the raid because you die or drop them (and nobody picks them up), they will be sent back to you via your inbox.
  

• Insured equipment will not be returned to you immediately. You’ll need to wait for a certain amount of time (between 12 and 36 hours), depending on the trader you chose to insure with.
  

• Once the items are returned to you, you have a limited time to retrieve them from your inbox. If that time expires, you will lose them permanently.
  

• If you insure with Prapor, you’ll pay slightly less than with Therapist, receive the insured items after 24–36 hours, and have 4 days to claim them (16 days with the Unheard Edition).
  

• If you insure with Therapist, you’ll pay slightly more than with Prapor, receive the insured items after 12–24 hours, and have 6 days to claim them (24 days with the Unheard Edition).
  

• The choice between using Prapor or Therapist can depend on cost, the urgency to retrieve your items, or the convenience of leaving them in the inbox longer if your stash is already full of gear.

  
  

• It is possible to reduce the items return time by 20% by upgrading the Intelligence Center to level 2 in you Hideout. With elite Hideout Management skill it's further reduced to 30% (buyers of the "Edge of Darkness" edition have a 30% reduced item return time).
  

• You can only insure gear items, containers and intel items, not consumables. For instance, you can insure weapons (including all their parts), helmets, armor, backpacks, but not items like ammunition, keys, or healing supplies.
  

• When you use insurance, you insure the item itself, not its contents: for example, if you insure a backpack with uninsured or uninsurable items inside, those contents will not be returned to you.
  

• You can also insure and get back any insurable item that is not equipped. For example, you can insure a second helmet and keep it in your backpack as a spare to bring into the raid.

  
  

When does insurance not work?

• If someone picks up your insured items and extracts with them, you won’t get them back. Similarly, if an AI picks up your insured items and is not killed before the raid ends, you won’t get them back. However, if an AI takes your items, is killed by another player, and that player extracts with the items, you still won’t get them back.
  

• MIA: If you get the "Missing In Action" status, insurance won’t work. This happens only if you fail to extract before the raid timer runs out or die from dehydration. You can bypass this exception by dropping all insured items on the ground. If the timer is almost up, you can drop everything where you are since the raid is about to close, ensuring no one picks them up. If you’re about to die from dehydration and the raid isn’t ending soon, it’s best to hide your insured items or throw them in unreachable spots (like water) to prevent them from being “stolen.”
  

• The Lab: Insurance doesn’t work in The Lab scenario. You can insure your items before entering, but if you lose them, you won’t get them back anyway.

Use insurance to your advantage (aka insurance fraud)

• For example, if you find a helmet identical to or better than yours, you can take advantage of the fact you've insured your helmet to leave it behind and wear the other one that isn’t insured. If you extract successfully, you’ll have the new helmet with you, and your original helmet will be returned without needing to carry it out (if no one has picked it up, so it's best to hide it).
  

• If you know you’re about to be killed by an enemy or die from other causes (bleeding out, dehydration, or the timer running out when you’re too far from extraction), you can hide your insured items or throw them in unreachable spots (like water) to prevent them from being "stolen."
  

• If you’re playing in a team and a teammate gets killed, you can hide their insured gear to ensure no one takes it, and they’ll get it back through insurance.

The insurance setup screen

But insurance costs money! Is it really worth using it all the time?

Yes. Always (or almost always).

Based on the advantages outlined above, my general advice is to always use insurance.

The cost is proportional to the quality of the items insured, so it makes sense even if the equipment is of low value, as the cost will also be minimal.

In fact, you could almost say that the lower the value of the equipment, the more useful insurance becomes, as other players are less likely to pick up low-value items.

Moreover, if we’re using low-value gear, it usually means we’re short on money. In this case, we’ll be even happier to get it back and reuse it, compared to when we’re wealthy and can easily repurchase high-value gear.

For high-value gear, it’s more likely that other players will "steal" the insured items, so they won’t be returned. However, it often happens that players don’t pick up high-value items for various reasons:

1. They don’t have space in their backpack because they prioritize other items they’ve already collected, which they need for quests, hideout upgrades, or because they have higher value per slot.

2. They don’t risk looting our body because it’s in a dangerous spot, or they suspect we have a teammate waiting to ambush them, or they fear someone else heard the gunfire and is approaching to kill any survivors.

3. They’re not interested in our gear because they prefer to use different types of equipment.

It’s also quite common for high-level players, when they realize they’ve killed a much lower-level player, to leave their gear behind as a gesture of sportsmanship (or compassion).

Additionally, we might die due to a Scav or another type of AI, or from other causes (falling from a height, dehydration, or the raid timer running out). In situations where other players don’t witness our death and the area isn’t heavily trafficked (or we have the time to hide it), it’s likely no one will pick up our gear, so it will be returned through insurance.

Lastly, you can't use insurance to your advantage if you don't insure your gear.

The only time it might not be worth insuring is for pieces of equipment we don’t care about. For example, this might occur if we’re raiding with a gun taken from a Scav, which is already damaged and unusable even if returned through insurance.

Personally, I insure everything just in case. If I get something back that I don’t need, I can recover part of the insurance cost by selling the items. Generally, I’m always surprised by the amount of equipment that comes back through insurance—sometimes too much, forcing me to sell it to make space in my stash.

This has also helped me overcome gear fear, as recovering so much gear made it feel like "free" equipment, encouraging me to use it more freely and with less fear of losing it.

You can find more details about insurance by reading the EFT Wiki page on insurance.

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