Why Your Clients Need To Buy Hurricane Insurance Before The Storm

As a travel insurance provider, we’ll always advise you to get your clients to buy their policy as soon as they book their trip – that especially holds true for hurricane season.

Unlike other natural disasters, hurricanes are slightly more predictable and travelers can get information about the storm ahead of time. This makes travelers a bit more confident in their travel plans. However each year, RoamRight sees a handful of travelers who opted out of insurance – until it was too late.

If you have travelers going anywhere along the Atlantic Coast, the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean, they should be prepared. From a travel insurance perspective, once a storm is no longer considered an “unforeseen event” for an area, it is too late to buy coverage for it. It’s important to remind your customers that the purpose of insurance is to protect against unforeseen events. Once an event can be predicted, it’s too late for insurance. So encourage your travelers to buy their insurance as early as possible in the booking process.

An Overview Of RoamRight’s Hurricane Coverage

The development of a hurricane can trigger several travel insurance benefits. Here’s how RoamRight’s plans can protect your travelers should a storm develop.

Trip cancellation or interruption benefits are triggered when:

• Your client’s primary place of residence or their destination is made uninhabitable by natural disaster.*
• Your client is employed by the military, police or fire department and is called into emergency service to provide aid or relief for a natural disaster.
• The local government orders a mandatory evacuation of your client’s destination due to a natural disaster, and they have more than 50% of your trip left.
• Inclement weather causes your traveler’s Common Carrier (most likely their airlines) to experience a complete cessation of services for at least 24 consecutive hours.

Trip delay and missed connection benefits kick in when:

• Your client’s trip is delayed for a specified amount of time because of a natural disaster.

*Natural disasters include earthquakes, floods, fires, hurricanes, blizzards, avalanches, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, or landslides that are due to natural causes.

Hurricanes and Travel Insurance

Perhaps your travelers aren’t going to a hurricane-prone area. Do you have anyone traveling to Rio de Janerio this summer for the Olympics? They might fly through Miami, which is subject to hurricanes. It helps to plan ahead and understand how a hurricane can impact all of your travelers’ plans.

And while we typically associate hurricane season with the Atlantic and the Caribbean, don’t forget about activity in the Pacific. Just last year, Hurricane Patricia was rated as the second-most intense tropical cyclone on record worldwide – it grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just 24 hours. It ultimately made landfall on the west coast of Mexico.

Hawaii has also been hit by several hurricanes, and east Asia is prone to cyclones. Making sure your clients are covered for these natural disasters is a key component of travel insurance.

Looking to protect your travelers with trip insurance for hurricanes? Contact RoamRight to discuss your options.