Cruise insurance for hurricanes

If you’re planning a cruise in the Americas or the Caribbean, it’s worth familiarising yourself with the changing insurance cover in these areas, especially relating to hurricanes! Here are some tips: 1 – Check what period of cover you get with hurricane warnings. Many come into operation only if the hurricane warning is made within 24 hours of your departure date, and only if you've held the policy for more than 15 days. 2 – Make sure you buy a policy before the hurricane is named. All travel insurance is based on unforeseen circumstances, so once a storm has a name it's deemed to be foreseen and you can’t claim on the policy for that hurricane 3 - The wording of a policy may be vague - some policies don't refer to hurricanes, using the terminology of ‘natural disaster’ instead – check with your insurance company what is covered by ‘natural disaster’ before you buy. 6 – Check your choices in relation to insurance - if you're offered an different trip with the same travel dates (say to Russia instead of Belize) you probably won’t be able to make an insurance claim if you refuse their offer. If the dates are different, most insurance companies will pay the claim but you must surrender the tickets to prove they haven’t been voided. This means that if you are fly-cruise, and you’ve used your flights but your cruise doesn’t go ahead, you may not get a full refund for the flight component on all policies.