Category: Plans & Coverage

Trips don’t always go as planned, and sometimes they get cut short for reasons completely outside your control. A family emergency back home, sudden illness, severe weather, or even a missed connection can force you to pack up early. That’s where trip interruption insurance can be your best friend. It helps protect the investment you’ve already made and can cover the extra costs of getting home sooner than expected.

Understanding how this benefit works can help you decide if trip interruption coverage is the right move before your next vacation.

At InsureMyTrip, we know the importance of expecting the unexpected when it comes to travel insurance. Lucky for you, and all of our travelers, there are two different benefits that will cover a cancelled trip: trip cancellation and Cancel for Any Reason

Trip Cancellation

You will find basic trip cancellation coverage in every comprehensive policy. This will extend coverage for the cancellation of a trip for specific unforeseen, covered reasons.

Commonly, travel insurance plans, including cruise insurance plans, will cover reasons such as:

• The unexpected death, illness, or injury of you and/or a traveling companion that deems you unfit to travel, by order of a licensed physician
• The hospitalization or death of a non-traveling family member
• Weather or common carrier related issues (varies by policy)
• Unforeseen natural disasters at home or the destination
• A legal obligation, such as being called for jury duty or to appear as a witness in court

The details vary from provider to provider and with each plan. If you do need to cancel, you will be reimbursed 100% of the prepaid, non-refundable trip cost for which you are insured and can provide documentation. All of this coverage, is only if the trip is cancelled due to a specific, unforeseen covered reason.

Cancel for Any Reason

Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) is an optional travel insurance benefit available on some of the plans available with InsureMyTrip. Usually, this benefit is an additional charge on the plan, but it comes with extended coverage that you may find worthwhile.

Unlike basic trip cancellation coverage, the CFAR benefit has a few eligibility criteria:

• Depending on the policy, only available within 10-21 days of initial trip payment
• You MUST insure 100% of your pre-paid, non-refundable trip cost
• Cancellation with the travel supplier must occur 48 or 72 hours before departure date, depending on the plan
• Benefits may only cover between 50%-75% depending on the policy.

With CFAR, it doesn’t matter why you have to cancel your trip – you just can. Often times, travelers will purchase CFAR coverage when traveling to a part of the world with civil or political unrest. This allows the traveler to cancel if uncomfortable with leaving for the trip – second thoughts, fear of safety or a bad omen appeared. Regardless the reason if you are outside 48 hours before your trip, you can cancel.

When bad weather strikes against your travel plans, it doesn’t always only affect your destination. In some unfortunate circumstances, bad weather can also affect your primary home. So what does it mean if a storm sweeps through your town and creates such substantial damage you don’t feel comfortable leaving on your trip? Can you cancel? Will you lose your money? Let’s talk about travel insurance for damage at home.

Fortunately, there is a chance your comprehensive travel insurance plan will offer trip cancellation insurance due to the damage at your home. The plan would have to have been in effect before the damage occurred or was “foreseen”. If the storm was foreseen, or predicted, prior to you purchasing your plan, you may not be eligible for the coverage. For this reason, we recommend purchasing your plan as early as possible after booking your trip.

Here is a short list of coverage that may come in handy if you experience damage to your home (or business) prior to leaving for a trip:

OK – so it’s probably a rare occasion that a disaster occurs at your home, causing damage that would keep you from traveling. Even so, this is one of those times you’d be thanking your lucky stars you invested in a travel insurance plan.

When tragedy happens at home, you don’t want to worry about 1) whether you should leave to take that trip you planned or 2) losing the money you already invested in your trip when you have other expenses piling up around you. Luckily, not only can the right travel insurance plan help you travel worry-free, but it can also help you to cancel worry-free.

Travel delay insurance coverage is typically available as part of a comprehensive travel insurance plan. With coverage for delays due to specified reasons, you may be entitled to benefits that will help get you back on track with your trip.

Types of Travel Delay Benefits

Depending on the plan, the travel delay coverage will vary. Your plan may provide a limit of coverage to help offset the costs of an extra night of accommodations and food. Also, some plans will have services that can help make arrangements to meet your cruise or tour group if your delay results in a missed connection.

If you have children or pets that will not be traveling with you, it may be a good idea to look carefully for plans that offer benefits for return trips. Sometimes travel delay covers childcare or pet boarding fees incurred in the event your return home is delayed due to a covered event.

While most companies provide coverage through reimbursement, a budget-weary traveler may want to look for one of the few companies that may make arrangements and pay for accommodations directly if you encounter an insurable event.

Time Frames of Coverage

To be eligible for travel delay benefits, you’ll need to be subjected to a delay that meets the minimum number of hours outlined in your travel insurance plan. This time frame will vary between plans but is often somewhere in the 3-12 hour range.

Any delay that is less than the designated time frame will most likely not be eligible for reimbursement. Keep this in mind when scheduling flights to connecting flights, cruises and tours. Give yourself enough time to arrive and depart again.

Trip Cancellation Options

Some travel insurance plans will provide you with the opportunity to cancel your trip if you are subjected to a covered delay that exceeds a certain amount of time. While each plan is different, in general, covered delays of 24 hours or longer may qualify you to cancel your trip and receive reimbursement.

Make sure you have thoroughly read and understood the terms of coverage in your insurance plan. The certificate will outline whether or not this safety net will be available in the case of an unreasonably lengthy delay. It could be beneficial for short trips or insured trips to see family members during the holiday season.

Terrorism travel insurance is a term more and more of our customers are inquiring about. Travelers who are concerned about potential terrorist acts should consider a comprehensive travel insurance plan with terrorism coverage. Typically, coverage for terrorist acts would be included under the trip cancellation and trip interruption as well as travel medical benefits in a plan. With this coverage, you would theoretically be able to cancel or interrupt your travel plans if an act of terrorism occurred in your destination city within a certain number of days of your scheduled arrival. This time frame varies by plan and provider, but in general, can be anywhere from 7 to 30 days.

Terrorism Defined

In order to receive reimbursement for a claim due to a terrorist attack, the travel insurance company must define the act as terrorism. While the definition may vary depending on which plan and provider you’ve chosen, there are two basic ways that travel insurance companies define “terrorist acts.” In any case, travelers should understand that even if there is some kind of violent, frightening civil discord occurring in a country to which they are scheduled to travel, it may not be covered under their travel insurance plan’s definition of “terrorism.”

1. The United States government must declare the situation in question to have been an act of terrorism.
2. A clear distinction must be made between terrorism and “civil disorder or riot”, and usually stipulates that the incident must not have been an act of war, whether declared or undeclared.

Restrictions for “Terrorism Travel Insurance”

In order to be eligible for coverage against terrorist acts, you will have to meet expectations on the part of the travel insurance company dates and geography are concerned. As already stated, your travel insurance plan will likely state that coverage only extends to terrorist acts that have occurred within a certain number of days of your scheduled departure, so make sure to read your plan details carefully.

Also, if a terrorist act has occurred in your destination city prior to your purchase of a travel insurance policy, it will likely be considered a “known peril” – which would mean that you would not be eligible for coverage for the terrorist acts or acts in connection to it (unless you are eligible for Cancel for Any Reason coverage).

Lastly, some plans may extend coverage to the region around a terrorist act but some may restrict coverage to the specific city, if it’s on your itinerary.

How to Get Coverage for Terrorism

Terrorist acts are, unfortunately, becoming more of a concern for common destinations that are not historically known for terrorist incidents. Some destination countries will not be eligible for terrorism coverage. If you have a concern about the destinations on your itinerary we urge you to ask one of our licensed representatives for clarification. The most reliable way to be covered for terrorism is to purchase your plan as early as possible and invest in a plan that includes Cancel for Any Reason coverage. This coverage has several eligibility requirements, including a time-sensitive purchase window after you have made your first trip payment.

It should be noted that Cancel for Any Reason benefits typically allow you to cancel your trip up to two days prior to the scheduled departure date, and in most cases, reimburse up to 75% of your pre-paid, non-refundable trip cost. It may be the only way to cancel a trip with some reimbursement to a destination with prior terrorism activity. Be sure to visit our travel warnings & alerts page for additional information on specific destinations.