Escape from Tarkov How Insurance Works

Insurance is a timer, not a promise

When you insure an item, the trader holds a copy and mails it back if it is not looted from your body within a set window. The window is short, and any player who kills you and drags your gear off the map beats the timer. Insurance softens loss; it does not prevent it.

Insure through a trader you use

Each trader returns insured gear on their own schedule, and the cost scales with item value. The traders overview page explains who is worth leveling first. Insuring everything is a tax on your stash; insure the items that actually hurt to replace, not the worn rig you found in a jacket.

What survives and what does not

Items in your container, secure pocket, or worn on a survivor who extracts are never lost, so insuring those is wasted money. Insure the weapon, the helmet, and the armor that sit in your normal slots. The stash guide covers how to stage gear so the right things are insured before each raid.

The flea market changes the math

Once the flea market opens, dead-value items are cheaper to rebuy than to insure. Stop insuring common guns and start insuring the expensive mods that take a full raid to source. The quest guide also gates trader levels, so insurance becomes easier to afford as you progress.

Claim before the timer dies

Insured gear sits in the trader’s messaging tab for a limited window, and once it lapses the items are gone for good. Check the tab after every raid, because the gear you forget to collect is gear you paid to lose. The quest guide also gates which traders you can insure through, so progress the early tasks before you rely on insurance for expensive kits.

Insure the mods, not the gun

The expensive part of a lost kit is the optic and the suppressor, not the bare receiver, so those are what deserve insurance once the flea opens. The weapon mods guide explains which parts cost a raid to source. Insure the pieces that hurt, and rebuy the gun when it is cheaper than the policy.

Related guides

• EFT Traders Overview
• EFT Stash Guide
• EFT Flea Market Fee Guide