Will Your Travel Insurance Cover You If There’s a Strike?

With strikes showing up in the news more and more recently, you may find yourself worried about upcoming travel plans. Will strikes interrupt your travel? And, if they do, is there anything you can do?

The good news, according to SquareMouth Travel Insurance, is if there is a strike during your trip, most travel insurance policies cover trip cancellation, trip delay, missed connections and baggage issues as a result of a labor strike. However, coverage may depend on when the strike started and when you purchased the insurance. If you purchase the insurance after a strike starts, the insurance provider may consider the strike a “known event.”

Looking at past strikes and how travel insurance providers responded, SquareMouth found when Delta Air Lines pilots authorized a strike in October 2022, just less than 40 percent of travel insurance companies, including IMG, Seven Corners, Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection and Generali Travel Insurance, said they would potentially cover trip cancellation and similar issues related to the strike. However, more than 40 percent said they would not cover these same things if the policy was purchased after the strike was authorized.

Your best bet to keep yourself covered? If traveling and a strike seems imminent, purchase your travel protection sooner rather than later.