Travel insurance cancellation cover due to death or illness of a close relative

ceng

Trying to organize our 2026 summer holiday to Austria and buy holiday insurance. However this year I have a few isues I need to take into consideration.

I have a number of relatives in their late 70's or 80's any of whom could pass away at any time.

There is one uncle in particular who has a degenerative neurological condition and is now paralyzed from the neck down. He has been in a nursing home for around 10 years. In the last few years he has suffered a number of infections but a dose of antibiotic seems to work. Given his condition he could die in the next week or month or year. Who knows?

Finally there is my mum. She is 91 and suffers from a number of conditions but they seem to be under control with all the medication she takes. Perhaps the most serious is her osteoporosis. In the last 10 to 20 years she has suffered a number of small fractures in the bones of her back that has left her in pain and needs daily pain killer medication. Recently the pain was so severe she was admitted to hospital, the first time this has happened. After a few weeks it was concluded that she had some new small fractures in her back that was causing a nerve to be trapped. After some physio she was discharged with some even stronger pain killers and is back home again, living alone. With her age and medical history she could die at any time.

With all this going on I don't know if travel insurance would cover me if I had to cancel in order to return due to someone's death or in the case of my mother, admision to hospital again. Will the travel insurance Company simply say you knew about all these things so you are not covered?

ceng

Trying to organize our 2026 summer holiday to Austria and buy holiday insurance. However this year I have a few isues I need to take into consideration.

I have a number of relatives in their late 70's or 80's any of whom could pass away at any time.

There is one uncle in particular who has a degenerative neurological condition and is now paralyzed from the neck down. He has been in a nursing home for around 10 years. In the last few years he has suffered a number of infections but a dose of antibiotic seems to work. Given his condition he could die in the next week or month or year. Who knows?

Finally there is my mum. She is 91 and suffers from a number of conditions but they seem to be under control with all the medication she takes. Perhaps the most serious is her osteoporosis. In the last 10 to 20 years she has suffered a number of small fractures in the bones of her back that has left her in pain and needs daily pain killer medication. Recently the pain was so severe she was admitted to hospital, the first time this has happened. After a few weeks it was concluded that she had some new small fractures in her back that was causing a nerve to be trapped. After some physio she was discharged with some even stronger pain killers and is back home again, living alone. With her age and medical history she could die at any time.

With all this going on I don't know if travel insurance would cover me if I had to cancel in order to return due to someone's death or in the case of my mother, admision to hospital again. Will the travel insurance Company simply say you knew about all these things so you are not covered?

elsien

I don’t think uncles count as close relatives in the context of travel insurance. It is more usually spouse, children, siblings, parents and grandparents. Anyone outside of that you won’t get cancellation cover before.

i’m not sure about your mum because normally they would cover if it was something unexpected, but from what you’ve said there’s little unexpected going on with her in the context of her age.

TELLIT01

You really need to speak to a specialist insurance broker about this, as it's unlikely that the normal insurers will cover it by default. If anybody will provide insurance I suspect the premium and excesses may be more than the cost of a holiday. Even those who would provide cover are likely to restrict to immediate family members and those travelling with you.

A cousin of mine has a similar quandary as her father-in-law was in and out of hospital a lot, so they kept putting off holidays. They finally decided to go anyway and everything was OK for a couple of their trips. The f-i-l did die when they were on holiday but other family members took care of the immediate issues, and funeral arrangements waited until they got back home.

maman

A similar thing happened to me as @TELLIT01 .

I think before looking for insurance you need to decide whether you'd need to return if your relative was to die while you're away.

It's unlikely you'll get other than an expensive specialist provider to insure you with your relatives having known conditions.

silvercar

The cost of insurance would be prohibitive.

Worst case and something happened while you were away and you would need to decide how quickly you needed to come home. Without insurance you could just go online and buy a flight home, it would probably be cheaper than the extra cost of insurance.

what would be more difficult would be if something happened just before your holiday that prevented you travelling, you may want to consider cancelable rates where you can.

MyRealNameToo

Whilst it's theoretically possible to declare medical conditions of non-travelling relatives and for the insurer therefore to decide to cover them for an additional premiums in practice I've never heard of any that do.

Exact wordings for non-travelling relatives will vary between insurer, the norm is to exclude anything linked to a pre-existing condition. There are a small minority which will cover for pre-existing if the sudden worsening of the condition was not expected. Naturally you are going to be very dependent on what the doctor completing the medical form for a claim is going to say.

Thankfully you are only going to Austria so the cost of a cutting the holiday short isnt going to be as much as more distant locations. Certainly I would be looking at accommodation with a decent cancellation policy so if you do need to end mid holiday you can cancel and get most the remaining nights back.