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A frustrating time means travellers should check their insurance carefully

It has been quite an eventful and frustrating start to the year for travellers as snow in January forced the cancellation of a number of flights, then the ash cloud disruption left many with travel insurance unable to claim for anything at all.

The majority of standard insurance policies will not cover cancelled flights, so it is an idea to purchase a premium policy to make sure this is included.

The Professional Insurance Brokers Association Chief Executive, Diarmund Kelly said, “Unfortunately many will find that their policies don’t cover claims arising from adverse weather conditions, a typical exclusion would be an act of God. Claims are generally not covered for the withdrawal from service of aircraft by order or recommendation of the regulatory authority in any country.”

Mr Kelly has called for a Financial Regulator to act as an external body to review the use of ‘act of God’ to see if it is a justifiable reason to exclude some claims.
Chief executive of the Irish Brokers Association, Ciaran Phelan said, “While insurers may well review the terms and conditions in their travel insurance policies, consumers should not rely on them to do so”.

Therefore, if someone was looking to buy travel insurance there are a number of things they should bear in mind.

If someone was to cancel a trip due to illness, the policy might not cover him or her for a pre-existing illness that was not disclosed beforehand. In addition, if the policy is set to start on the date of travel and the holiday is cancelled a month earlier, the traveller is unlikely to be covered, as the policy will not have started yet.
If a person were to lose their job due to redundancy, some policies will cover that person, but only if they were not aware that their job was under threat when the policy was bought.

When travelling to the destination of a trip and a connecting flight, train or cruise is missed, not all policies will cover this. If it does, it may need a certain length of time between connections.

Should someone lose their luggage and make a claim for the missing contents, receipts or credit card statements could be requested by the insurance company. Some policies put a cap on the amount per item and might exclude things like cameras and jewellery.
You will generally not be covered if you suffer an injury whilst drunk and if you have cover under your private health insurance, it will not be necessary to buy this again.
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