Travel Insurance for Unvaccinated which covers cancellation if jab mandates return

dangerous-dave

Does anyone know of any Travel Insurance polices (including optional addons) which cover trip cancellation for policy holders who are either unvaxxed or not fully vaxed if a country brings back vaccine mandates.

I'm dabbling with fully flexible flights, but wondered if anyone in the UK has found Travel Insurance which covers cancellations if jab mandates unexpectedly come back? 

I know the US have "Cancel for Any Reason" insurance which covers it, but wondered if UK has anything similar? If not, i'll just pony up the extra cash for fully changeable/cancellable flights.  

Thanks in advance

 

To be clear, i am not looking for personal covid cover - health cover or sickness preventing travel, just to cover trip cancellation from Government imposed restrictions preventing freedom of movement if you do not have all the required jab "stamps".

DullGreyGuy

Depending on where you are travelling to the cost of fully flexible tickets can be 50% or more more expensive than standard tickets. Personally wouldnt be worth the increase in cost for the unlikely prospect of requirements for covid jabs being brought in. 

Dont think there are any insurers offering CFAR in the UK but then our travel insurance prices are a fraction of what the US have to pay for much lower coverages. A random short trip to Australia costing $6,000 costs £17 from a UK insurer and $115 in the US without CFAR. The former gives unlimited medical expenses whereas the US is only $100,000. Add CFAR and it more than doubles to $235

Even with CFAR there are limits such as you have to buy it very close to booking the holiday and cannot cancel in the last 48 hours. 

I would be surprised if people in the UK market would go with an uplift of over 10x. I mean the £17 was for a healthy fairly young person. Change that to a family policy with splattering of diabetes type 2, high blood pressure etc and that's now £286 if you assume a similar ration your CFAR version would be c£3,150. People here complain about the 3 figure sum let alone a 4 figure with no major illnesses

silvercar

Given that most of us under 60 won't have had a vaccine since 2022, the value of a country bringing in a requirement to have been vaccinated so long ago is small. The only place where it may be justifiable would be on cruise ships, where they would rather confine any covid sufferers to their cabins than have to care for them in the medical facility or offload them to hospital.

dangerous-dave

Thank you both for your thoughts. 
Yes, the cost goes from £4400 with BA with the bigger seats, (of which just £1k is refundable due to being taxes) to nearly £5k on a flexible ticket with Virgin.  Sadly location is the US who were one of first to bring in restrictions and last to lift them, so i'm more cautious. Was debating whether to take a punt on the BA standard seats which were £2500, but as its a long flight wife wanted the extra legroom.

Good point on the under 60's - my concern is that they use this latest variant which is all over the news to ramp up the requirements again.   At least with the Virgin ticket i'll be able to switch to Mexico who had no restrictions last time around.  
Thanks for the replies.

Caz3121

dangerous-dave said:

 £4400 with BA with the bigger seats, (of which just £1k is refundable due to being taxes) 

Just to point out that the biggest £ under "taxes and fees" is YQ which is non-refundable...I would expect that the refundable taxes is a much smaller number

la531983

dangerous-dave said:

Thank you both for your thoughts. 
Yes, the cost goes from £4400 with BA with the bigger seats, (of which just £1k is refundable due to being taxes) to nearly £5k on a flexible ticket with Virgin.  Sadly location is the US who were one of first to bring in restrictions and last to lift them, so i'm more cautious. Was debating whether to take a punt on the BA standard seats which were £2500, but as its a long flight wife wanted the extra legroom.

Good point on the under 60's - my concern is that they use this latest variant which is all over the news to ramp up the requirements again.   At least with the Virgin ticket i'll be able to switch to Mexico who had no restrictions last time around.  
Thanks for the replies.

All over the news where? 

silvercar

dangerous-dave said:

Thank you both for your thoughts. 
Yes, the cost goes from £4400 with BA with the bigger seats, (of which just £1k is refundable due to being taxes) to nearly £5k on a flexible ticket with Virgin.  Sadly location is the US who were one of first to bring in restrictions and last to lift them, so i'm more cautious. Was debating whether to take a punt on the BA standard seats which were £2500, but as its a long flight wife wanted the extra legroom.

Good point on the under 60's - my concern is that they use this latest variant which is all over the news to ramp up the requirements again.   At least with the Virgin ticket i'll be able to switch to Mexico who had no restrictions last time around.  
Thanks for the replies.

Ramping up requirements for everyone to have had a vaccine over an year ago? I don’t see how that makes sense. My last vaccine was October 2022 and I’m not eligible for the Autumn 2023 programme. I don’t see the US requiring a year old vaccine.

DullGreyGuy

dangerous-dave said:
Sadly location is the US who were one of first to bring in restrictions and last to lift them, so i'm more cautious. 

The US also totally banned anyone non-US resident from entering via the UK irrespective of vaccine status as the UK also Red statused Mexico meaning quarantine hotel irrespective of status on return. 

It was all clearly highly political and not just about public health as I spent much of Covid times in Mexico and could easily go LHR - MEX - JFK to get to the US and equally MEX - JFK - LHR with a 2 week stop in JFK to return home to avoid the quarantine hotel. 

Vaccine status can depend on if you have a doctor certified reason for being unable to have it or you align to QAnon 

Mikeyboy01443

If it does come back in I'm sure ivax would still be around