Let’s start off with what insurance in Escape From Tarkov means and how Battlestate Games implemented the system. If you are familiar with the game, you know that you will lose lots of gear to other players. If you are not familiar with the game, we can tell you for a fact, that you will lose lots of gear to players and scavs alike.

The definition of insurance

According to Lexico, insurance means “an arrangement by which a company or the state undertakes to provide a guarantee of compensation for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment of a specified premium”. It’s no different in Escape From Tarkov, but we will replace the company or state that undertakes the risk with the traders in the game.

How is the insurance mechanic implemented in Escape From Tarkov?

The mechanic shares similarities with how you would expect insurance to work in real life, only without the excess payments. Choose the gear you would like to have insured before heading into a raid, you could also click on “Insure all” if you have lots of funds. Next, choose your favourite trader who will bring back your loot. The trader’s insurance offerings differ, and we will get to the details soon. Once you make your selection, pay them. You will notice that your insurance prices differ from raid to raid because every item in the game has a unique value and you probably won’t take the same kit into every raid.

Prapor or Therapist?

How do I get my loot back?

Let’s say you have insured your gun before going into a raid, you got slaughtered inside the raid and now you are sitting here wondering when the hell am I getting my gun back!? There are two main variables that will determine whether you will get your loot back. Starting with the first variable, you went into the raid insured and you died to a group of sweaty chads. After they picked your body bone dry, and took all your most valuable loot, their next move will be to extract from the map to secure all their loot. If they successfully extract from the map with your loot you are guaranteed not to see that loot again. RIP. The same concept applies to scav players that spawn into raids and take dead players’ loot. Scav players will head to the map’s popular areas to see if there are some loot left that someone just could not fit into their backpack and take that to their nearest extraction zone.

Heading for extraction

The second variable is more in your control, and this is something I always do to minimize my losses. You went into the raid fully insured, you just killed a sweaty chad. After you waited a couple of minutes to see if he had any backup, go loot his body and take it all. Once you have his most valuable items such as weapons, helmets and body armor in your possession, throw your insured loot into a bush or an obscure location that no one would think to look for loot. This is how you effectively minimise your losses. Let’s take the scenario where you threw out your insured loot and took the dead player’s loot. Right after you dumped your insured loot, you get engaged by players. You might kill them or in the case of death you lost someone else’s gear and your insured gear will return if no one found your hiding spot.

What do I need to insure?

Important items to insure

Helmets

There is a lot of controversy around whether you should even wear a helmet late in a wipe. This is because most players have decent ammo in their guns, rendering your tier 4-6 helmets almost useless as the ammo just pierces straight through.

Body Armor

Because body armor takes up a decent chunk of inventory space, some players might think twice before taking your armor if they already have an inventory filled with guns. Your armor might be a lower tier than theirs, which will also put them off of the idea.

Weapon

If you died to a player, and he didn’t die I can almost guarantee you he will take your weapon, at the very least remove the silencer if your gun was a sub par for his liking.

Backpack

With the new weight system players don’t stack backpacks like they used to, you still get the rats that will take every last drop. Most of the time I have seen my backpacks returned to me. If your the rat that takes everything you will find our customs key guide useful.

The rest of the items that you will most likely take into the raid are magazines, ammo and medical supplies. Players always take your 60 round magazines and you cannot insure medical items or ammo. So I hope you got to shoot some of that expensive ammunition before dying.

Who to choose?

Prapor 16510 vs Therapist 41268 Roubles

You can choose between Therapist and Prapor when it comes to who will get your money when you’re insuring your items. The two biggest factors at play when ensuring traders is the cost and the time it takes for your items to potentially return.

I loaded up a mock-up kit to show you an example of what it would cost to insure the same gear at both the traders. The difference in price was rather significant. There was a noticeable increase in price when insuring with Therapist, compared to when insuring your loot with Prapor. This seems like a lot but you have to consider that you will get your gear back in 10-20 hours when insuring with Therapist opposed to a waiting time of between 20-29 hours when insuring with Prapor.

I prefer to do my insurance with Prapor

I have found Prapor’s timer to be perfect for the amount of time I spend playing the game. I play around the same time every day, giving Prapor’s boys 24 hours to get my loot. I start most evenings with some loot that I got back, becoming a nice little snowball insurance effect.

That concludes our insurance guide, let us know in the comments who is your preferred insurance “company”.

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