[Tom Otley]

Just got the news that the big investment fair has been cancelled in Berlin.

Along with the Geneva motorshow

I was wondering what the insurance options are when the aircraft are still flying (ie: the flight isn’t cancelled) but the reason for going has …. gone.

[BPP]

I suspect that the options are very few indeed and will depend on the specific Flight and Accomodation contracts involved.
Having been badly bitten once some years ago, I now will not book anything with significant cancllation charges. It may cost a bit more but now well worth the extra to have the flexibility to change/cancel as needed.
BPP

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Shamsh1, Bullfrog

[Bullfrog]

Avios bookings provide great flexibility in the event of the need to cancel.

Mind you, ‘with a bad bite’, a doctor can write a letter saying you’re too badly bitten to travel. Travel insurance will act on a doctor’s letter.

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Shamsh1

[FaroFlyer]

As I mentioned in another post this has also been cancelled
https://light-building.messefrankfurt.com/frankfurt/en.html

[AMcWhirter]

Berlin’s ITB trade show for next week has just been cancelled.

Very short notice, I know, but I wonder whether or not the airlines and hotels will grant refunds ?

[Coronavirus] travel trade show ITB Berlin 2020 has been cancelled

[BPP]

Hi Bullfrog,
Should have made it clear that the bite was from a very well known bucket shop imposing massive cancellation charges upon a then naive consumer – me!
Once bitten…. etc!
BPP

[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=991935]I was wondering what the insurance options are when the aircraft are still flying (ie: the flight isn’t cancelled) but the reason for going has …. gone.[/quote]

This conundrum is all part of the travel insurance lottery – does the policy holder know exactly what perils are covered and which events are not. I was rather hoping at some point BT would be creating an article about travel insurance and how travellers can protect themselves better against perils. I think the problem here is who would have thought travel could be disrupted and losses incurred through a possible pandemic virus, so losses caused by a pandemic virus are likely not to be included in a travel insurance policy, even those issued by John Lewis!!

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Shamsh1

[K1ngston]

I had dinner last night with a GM of a Hotel chain here in Thailand, and I was talking to him about cancellations and what that means to their business and was very interested to get his side of the story.

He said that when the Chinese stopped flying everyone was afforded either a cancellation or re scheduling of their trip which has been discussed before on the forums however now as the virus deepens and the scare stories multiply people who have booked since the outbreak and now have decided not to travel are not getting compensated for their cancellations, I questioned that from a “consumer” perspective and he was quick to point out that his particular chain is 60% down on this time last year, in Phuket now as we move into low season its when Europeans and the Russians depart and the Chinese invade! This year this of course won’t happen and here in Phuket his hotel has 20% occupancy and therefore they really cannot afford to compensate people who secondary booked and are now not flying for fear of collapse.

He is convinced that Thailand is in big trouble from the virus as it depends so heavily on the Chinese coming in, and whilst the Thai authorities have been less than truthful with the scale of affected souls, its not as bad as Indonesia which is reporting no reported affected souls which of course is nonsense …

There is a long way to go before this part of the world is out of this crisis, and the sad thing is that its mostly scare mongery amongst social media and the press causing the situation, yes there are people contracting the virus but the mortality rate is less than 2% better odds than the common cold and basic influenza

[TominScotland]

[quote quote=992041]There is a long way to go before this part of the world is out of this crisis, and the sad thing is that its mostly scare mongery amongst social media and the press causing the situation, yes there are people contracting the virus but the mortality rate is less than 2% better odds than the common cold and basic influenza[/quote]

K1ngston, the evidence about this is sketchy as yet but it would appear that Coronavirus has substantially higher mortality rates than basic influenza. See (https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-myths.html)

Myth: The coronavirus is less deadly than the flu

So far, it appears the coronavirus is more deadly than the flu. However, there’s still a lot of uncertainty around the mortality rate of the virus. The annual flu typically has a mortality rate of around 0.1% in the U.S. So far, there’s a 0.05% mortality rate among those who caught the flu virus in the U.S. this year, according to the CDC.

In comparison, recent data suggests that COVID-19 has a mortality rate more than 20 times higher, of around 2.3%, according to a study published Feb. 18 by the China CDC Weekly. The death rate varied by different factors such as location and an individual’s age, according to a previous Live Science report.

But these numbers are continuously evolving and may not represent the actual mortality rate. It’s not clear if the case counts in China are accurately documented, especially since they shifted the way they defined cases midway through, according to STAT News. There could be many mild or asymptomatic cases that weren’t counted in the total sample size, they wrote.

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Shamsh1, agsteele

[Bullfrog]

i know what you meant .. ! it helps having a doctor in the family !

[PhilipHart]

My wife and I have booked flights to New Zealand in late-May, where my wife will keynote at a conference.

We hadn’t as yet arranged travel insurance, but we were advised yesterday by the conference organisers to do so asap, in case they have to postpone or even cancel the event.

Easy peasy you might think. After all, every travel insurance policy provides cancellation cover, so just search for one that that matches one’s price/reputation preference.

Well that is true up to a point.

Every single policy (of the literally dozen or so I have looked at in detail) allows for cancellation if one becomes ill, travel companion becomes ill, death of close relative, call up for jury duty, etc. But none of them provides recourse in the event of postponement or cancellation of an event.

Certainly event cancellation insurance exists as a separate category, but this relates to recovery of costs in the case (say) of a musician being ill and a concert being cancelled. And it applies equally to conferences – if one has paid to attend. But not so if one is the performer.

In principle, the event organisers should have their own insurance which they can invoke to compensate service providers, conference centre, caterers, etc. And I shall certainly be writing to our conference organisers to ask them for clarification on this point.

But, meanwhile, if anyone on BT knows of travel insurance which covers the sort of risk i’ve outlined, please advise.

ps – We are actually flying to NZ with Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong. So it could well be that our tickets are cancelled/refunded in any case. But we’d still prefer to have suitable travel insurance in place anyway.

[MartynSinclair]

@PhilipHart – I was under the impression that travel insurance had to be put in place at the time of booking or before.

If you are purchasing insurance AFTER tickets (flights) were purchased I would check to make sure there are no restrictions on benefits.

[PhilipHart]

@MartynSinclair, not according to the numerous policy documents I have read.

One can take out insurance at any time, but it only comes into effect from the time of purchase.

Now whether the insurance company would consider the current COV19 situation as “pre-existing” at the time of purchase, in order to justify denial of payment in the event of cancellation is another matter entirely.

Interestingly, there is some variation regarding when the cancellation cover expires, with some policies stating that it does so the instant you leave your home to start your journey!

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Shamsh1

[AnthonyDunn]

In reply to those stating that Covid-19 is less infectious than the common cold and no more threatening to life than a standard Winter influenza outbreak, I would ask that you set out your sources. With my wife’s cancer chemo and immunotherapy causing her to be immunodeficient, we are having to take this very seriously.

There certainly is much confusing and often contradictory advice and information out there but we are broadly – from the medical professionals we are engaging with – understanding that Covid-19 is some ten times more infectious than other Winter viruses and potentially twice as likely to cause fatality.

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Shamsh1

[capetonianm]

One can take out insurance at any time, but it only comes into effect from the time of purchase.

That is correct, but the insurer will ask if the applicant knows of any reason that may lead to cancellation, thus covering themselves. If, for example, the applicant cancelled two weeks after taking the policy, citing illness, and the insurers investigated and found that illness had been diagnosed or even investigated prior to taking the policy, the insurance becomes void.

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Shamsh1

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