Travel insurance which covers flight cancellations and airlines going bust?

SouthLondonUser

I have a two-week holiday planned in a EU country, before the October Brexit deadline.

The return flight is with Ryanair (there were no feasible alternatives).

My questions are:

• what insurers provide policies that would cover the cost of returning to the UK if Ryanair goes bust or if the flight gets cancelled? Including if that is because of an 'act of God' or anything else that is beyond the airline's control (bankruptcy, volcanic ash, strikes, adverse weather conditions, whatever). I understand these policies will be more expensive than most.
• Is there any way to get cover only for the return flight, i.e. excluding medical cover while abroad? I suspect not.

The "premiere" policy of Liverpool Victoria seems to tick the first box. See pages 39 and 44 of the booklet https://lv-travel.co.uk/i/themes/lvtravel/static/LVpolicybooklet_23514_2018.pdf

I had a look on comparethemarket and I found only one cover that was cheaper (economycover.com) but I couldn't find the document with the exact wording (not a good sign).

Do you know of others? I seem to remember some discussions or articles on this but can't find them anymore.

fifeken

Sounds like you want Scheduled Airline Failure Insurance which is widely available. Here's a link to Gocompare's take on it:

https://www.gocompare.com/travel-insurance/scheduled-airline-failure-insurance/

SouthLondonUser

Thanks. That covers only the airline going bust, not flight cancellations, right? Eg strikes weather conditions etc?

bradders1983

You are worried about Ryanair going bust before October?

Really?

Seriously?

SouthLondonUser

No, I am not particularly worried about Ryanair going bust. Insurance against that is a nice to have but not a matter of life or death. I am more worried about the return flight being cancelled for whatever reason: strikes, weather conditions, Ryanair messing up its schedules (it's happened already), etc. Insurance against these events is what's more important for me. This is because, like I said, there are no feasible alternatives. Ryanair is the only airline flying that route directly ;flights with a stopover are fully booked around that date. So the only alternative would be to travel by car to another, bigger airport, which wouldn't be close. I understand it's low probability, but it's one of those low-probability, high-impact kind of events, which is why I want insurance.

I also understand not everyone seeks insurance. I didn't ask if I should, I asked if you know of other insurers that offer what I'm looking for.

By the way, Aviva has something similar to LV but the wording is much less clear, so, for now, LV seems my best bet.