Coronavirus Travel Insurance Update

The Coronavirus was declared a Pandemic by the World Health Organization on Wednesday the 11th March 2020. Whilst the situation remains fluid and the number of positive tests for Coronavirus increases on a daily basis, we wanted to assist travellers by providing an update to our original Coronavirus article.

LV shocked the industry by immediately withdrawing from the Travel Insurance market and announcing it would stop selling travel insurance for the foreseeable future.

InsureandGo, announced that as from 11th March, Coronavirus was a known event and any policy purchased after that date would not be covered for the Coronavirus. For policies purchased prior to the 11th March, cancellation claims can still be made, but only where the Foreign Office has advised against all but essential travel. Currently this is for the whole of China, Italy, and Spain.

InsureandGo's advice is that they will only consider claims where the date you bought your travel insurance policy precedes the date the FCO advised against travel to your intended destination; and will only consider non-refundable expenses on your travel insurance policy, so in the first instance you should approach the airline, your tour operator or your travel company for a possible refund/to see if they will amend your itinerary.

Aviva have now also pulled out of the Travel Insurance Market. Their advice for existing policyholders is similar to InsureandGo's. For travellers who didn't take out the travel disruption option, there is no cover for cancellation.

You can still obtain travel insurance from the Post Office, but any new quotes will not provide cover relating to COVID-19.

Staysure have removed travel disruption cover with effect from the 13th March 2020.

Axa Insurance have advised there is no cancellation cover as a result of the Coronavirus from 13th March 2020.

John Lewis and Tesco's no longer offer travel insurance.

ON THE BACK OF LV's DEPARTURE THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES HAVE TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED ALL NEW QUOTES;

Virgin Money
Sainsburys
Asda
MoreThan
Churchill
Direct Line
Circlecover.com
HSBC
Clydesdale Bank
Yorkshire Bank
Co-op Travel Insurance
Admiral Direct

Most travel insurance policies have specific reasons for allowing cancellation claims. "Fear of an epidemic, pandemic, infection or allergic reaction" is not one of them.

We will keep this article updated as the situation changes.