It can be difficult to understand travel insurance policies sometimes, particularly when it comes to trip cancellation clauses for reasons such as war or terrorism. Unfortunately the world is not always stable and problems can break out all over the globe. What happens if war or terrorism happens to affect the place you are heading to on vacation, or the city where you are having your business meetings?
The first thing to do is read the wording of your policy closely. All policies are different but there are broad similarities when it comes to trip cancellation for reasons of war or terrorism. In most cases you won’t be able to claim for trip cancellation if there is a threat of terrorism, and you won’t be able to claim if you decide not to take your trip because you are scared of traveling or you feel that the destination will be unsafe. Most often the incident will need to take place close to where you are traveling to or from, and there will probably be a travel warning in place from the US State Department.
You will need to have purchased your travel insurance policy before the incident happens or before violence occurs in order to be covered. If you are concerned about coverage for reasons of terrorism or war and violence, call your insurer and ask them personally what the coverage is in these instances. This will help put your mind at rest.
Many policies don’t leave it up to you to decide what constitutes a covered reason for cancellation, for example terrorism – the policy leaves it up to the government or law enforcement agencies to define whether a war is happening or a terrorist incident has taken place. Fear and unease surrounding political events or demonstrations is not usually enough to trigger a travel insurance policy to pay out if you don’t want to travel anymore.
