Raise your hand if the sheer force of your anxiety has ever made you pay a little extra to insure your flight. Maybe you thought, You never know, a pandemic could hit.
Well, the worst happened — but all that worrying doesn’t seem to be doing much good.
Turns out, canceling your flight because of a global pandemic is not covered in the policies of the 2 major flight insurers, Allianz and Travel Guard.
There are some exceptions to that travel insurance rule: If you had COVID-19, you might have gotten an insurance payout — but only under certain conditions.
In flight insurance lingo, you can’t be covered if there is a “foreseen” disaster. But insurers set their own rules about when the risk of catching COVID-19 was “foreseen.”
For Allianz, you had to book before January 22. For Travel Guard, you had until March 11. COVID-19 patients who bought insurance after those dates: Tough luck.
But flight insurers aren’t the only ones to totally flop during their moment in the spotlight.
Back in 2006, small business insurers agreed that they wouldn’t cover any pandemic-related loss of business.
Which means: Businesses facing a historic drop in customers are going to have a tough time getting insurance help.
One lawyer told Marker there might be a workaround — blaming a loss of income on the lockdown, not the virus specifically — but it won’t be easy.
Meanwhile, businesses facing looting damage have also struggled to get their money. A case in point: After multiple lootings, the sneaker reseller Rif LA only recouped 20% of its losses.
But some insurers are feeling a little more generous. With so few people driving, car insurance companies have been handing out rebates.