“When unforeseen weather causes a delay or cancellation of your trip, your policy may reimburse you for nonrefundable expenses for accommodations and other travel expenses, up to the amount of coverage you purchased.”
That’s what a Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection policy says about cancellation due to weather events; now, let’s dive into what that really means.
Unforeseen events
Like many elements of travel insurance, you really need to pay attention to the details when examining the relationship between travel insurance and weather.
For travel insurance to cover weather related trip cancellation, a weather event must be unforeseen; in other words, there had to have been no way of you seeing it coming.
In the travel insurance universe, the most common way of “seeing” that a weather event is coming is by having a storm be named.
Once a tropical storm, hurricane, typhoon, blizzard, or other major weather event is named, the thought is that you have the means of knowing about it, its potential impact on your travel, and postponing your travel or choosing a different destination.
It’s not always that clean and clear cut in the real world, of course, but that’s the line of demarcation in travel insurance.
Severe events
The weather event also needs to be severe. How is severe measured? For travel-insurance purposes, severity isn’t measured by wind speed or snow amounts; it’s measured by how it affects your ability to continue on your trip as planned.
One of the chief ways of measuring that is the habitability of your lodgings.
If either your home or your destination is made uninhabitable by a natural disaster and you have to interrupt your trip as a result, travel insurance could reimburse you for the money you’ve already paid for the remainder of your trip.
If there’s an evacuation order in place for your destination, some travel insurance plans may reimburse you for the prepaid costs you lost as a result. Read your plan carefully or ask your provider before you purchase.
Finally, travel insurance can cover you if a weather event causes someone to die or become severely ill at your scheduled lodgings and they’re unable to host you.
Other ways travel insurance can help
Actually, there are some other ways travel insurance can help with trip altering weather.
Cash advance
Travel assistance from Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection can help arrange an emergency cash transfer. When you need to buy your way out of where you are with cash, it’s huge.
Message relay
Travel assistance can also relay a message to friends, family, and/or business associates – another huge perk if weather wreaks havoc on communication.
Travel delay reports
You can also get reports on travel delays through BHTP assistance services – delays around the world or just where you happen to be. Because an informed stranded traveler is … well, they’re still a stranded traveler. But a lot less nervous stranded traveler.
Does travel insurance cover cancellation due to weather? It can – in some cases. And you can only recover what you’ve already paid in nonrefundable travel expenses. But if you have those, and bad weather strikes, travel insurance is there to help.
