Travel Insurance & Hurricanes ?

Kev64

I've just booked a fortnight in Cancun and completely forgot about the hurricane season out there. After a bit of investigation, I find to my alarm that not only is this year expected to be more active than most, but the peak of the hurricane season is 10th Sept - bang in the middle of our holiday !! Not only that, but the area statistically gets hit every 2.8 years and was last demolished by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 !!

I've yet to arrange travel insurance, and was wondering what the score is on this and hurricanes, generally. More specifically, are there policies out there that give more hurricane cover than most, and how would I find those ?

Many thanks.

Kev.

dmg24

Kev,

Please don't post threads twice!

As stated in the other thread, very few (if any) insurers provide cover for 'Acts of God'.

saveapenny

unless you have booked a Sandals hotel you have no chance
Someone off here booked Antigua for tomorrow...wonder if they will even fly?
keep an eye on http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ if ones due to hit before you fly tour ops wont even take off

Kev64

dmg24 wrote: »

Kev,

Please don't post threads twice!

Why not ? I thought that as the subject covered both Travel and Insurance, it would be better to put it in both categories. I have been unable to find anything in the rules that forbids this.

As stated in the other thread, very few (if any) insurers provide cover for 'Acts of God'.

Not so.. After a bit of hunting around I've found that most seem to provide cancellation cover as long as the policy is taken out before the hurricane is given a name. If 'acts of god' were generally excluded from insurance policies, then half of Gloucester is suffering uninsured losses from flooding !

dmg24

It's not a rule - it just means that people don't have to duplicate their work!

If you are going to contradict what people tell you, then why ask in the first place?

The cancellation cover will only come into effect if travel to the country/ region in question is advised against by the FCO. In this case, the travel operator will cancel the holiday anyway, and so you will receive your money back through them. You should be more concerned with what happens if the hurricane occurs when you are actually out there.

Not all insurers paid out after the tsunami disaster, or some of the recent hurricanes in Florida.

The flood damage that you are referring to would be covered by home contents and buildings insurance, not travel insurance, so not really comparable.

kittynortheast

Hi, we were in hurricane Wilma in Cancun in 2005, we only had 2 days in resort before it hit, in terms of cancelling they don't tend to as hurricanes are unpredictable and can change course at any time, They only seem cancel flights if the actual airpots close, which is last minute (we were also in Hurricane Charlie!! in 2004 in Florida - yeah bad luck I know). In terms of insurance it depends on the company, you really need to read the small print. If I remember rightly the people who had their holidays cancelled 'cos the airports had closed were offered alternative holidays (but don't quote me on that!). We were with the Post Office and we claimed for clothing etc.. which we had to buy after we were evacuated with no difficulties, on the other hand the people we were travelling with didn't get anything as the company (sorry can't remember which) said they had abandoned their luggage and therefore weren't entitled to anything (we had to leave our stuff at the hotel) it does vary a lot from policy to policy.