Allegiant Strike Highlights Travel Insurance Benefit, says Squaremouth

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Apr 03, 2015, 02:30 ET

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., April 3, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Earlier this week, pilots at Allegiant Air announced their plan to strike, threatening the trips of as many as 186,000 travelers. Unfortunately for Allegiant customers, it is too late to purchase a travel insurance policy to cover the pending strike. Squaremouth, America's fastest growing travel insurance comparison site, answers two major questions about insurance coverage for airline strikes.

Can I Get Coverage for an Airline Strike?
Labor strikes causing flight cancellations are generally covered under standard Trip Cancellation policies. Policies that include this benefit may reimburse a traveler 100% of their nonrefundable trip costs if an airline strike causes their trip to be cancelled.

However, coverage ends once the strike has been announced or reported by the media. Once this occurs, it becomes a foreseeable event, and will be excluded on any policies purchased after the announcement.

"When determining the cutoff date for coverage of a strike, most travel insurance providers go by the date it becomes public knowledge, not the date the strike actually occurs," explains Squaremouth Director of Marketing, Megan Singh.

In addition to being unforeseen, most travel insurance providers require the strike be organized, announced and sanctioned by a labor union in order to be covered. Some also require it to cause complete cessation of a common carrier for a specific time period before the benefit is triggered, this varies between 12 and 48 hours.

Can I Still Get Coverage if Strikes at my Airline are Common?
German airline, Lufthansa, has been riddled with pilot strikes in recent years. In March of 2015, the airline experienced its 12th walkout in the past 12 months.

In this situation, coverage for future strikes varies depending on the insurance provider. Some will consider future strikes inevitable, thus excluding them, while others will look at each strike as an individual event, and will still provide coverage, regardless of past strike history.

"In the case of Lufthansa pilot strikes, each provider will have their own interpretation if future strikes are 'foreseeable'," added Singh. "Some of our providers have already explicitly excluded coverage of this airline due to their strike history, while others have said coverage can still be available."

ABOUT SQUAREMOUTH:
Squaremouth is an online company that compares travel insurance products from virtually every major travel insurance provider in the United States. Using Squaremouth's comparison engine and third party customer reviews, travelers can research and compare insurance products side-by-side. More information can be found at www.squaremouth.com.

AVAILABLE TOPIC EXPERT:
Megan Singh
[email protected]
(727) 378-0983

SOURCE Squaremouth