BA-Allianz Travel Insurance - COVID Cover
 

On twitter today BA have tweeted that they have just launched travel insurance, in conjunction with Allianz, that covers cancellations due to being infected with COVID-19, extra costs due to quarantine due to a positive COVID-19 test and medical expenses related to COVID-19.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...avel-insurance

https://www.magroup-online.com/LCWL/...aign=Essential

It DOESN'T cover general/population wide quarantines. Only covers you if your extra costs are due to those covered by the policy being infected/exposed and travel must be in line with FCO travel advice. Still, a vast improvement on what most insurers have been telling everyone recently.

Family of four going to Spain for the first two weeks of August comes in at £85. Annual European cover for the same size of family starts at £160. Worldwide annual cover starts at £215.

That's a good development - thanks for sharing.

Good to see BA are acting as I advised them to do some weeks ago :-)

More seriously this is a good effort by BA to provide a mitigation against a customer impediment to travel. I might consider this to be an add-on to existing other travel insurance, between them covering everything except generalised lockdowns. Then one is left to avoid places with a tendancy to generalised ad-hoc lockdown.

It's worth checking existing policies. My own insurer withdrew Covid coverage with several emails on the subject. They have quietly reintroduced Covid medical cover to the self-isolation Exempt countries, sending out no emails on the subject. They're not covering quarantine costs (accommodation) except for those who bought an add-on before March 2020.

This feels like a game-changer for me. We are keen to get booking to some safe destinations (relative to the UK) as soon as FCO advice permits. Not too worried about cancellation costs etc because we always book non-flexible and just suck it up if we can't use the booking for some uninsured change of plan.

But a potential foreign intensive care bill is a different level of risk, even if the likelihood is low. BA-Allianz is more expensive than my current annual worldwide cover but too bad.

I would strongly recomend the Amex Plat cover which is with AXA. It does cover for medical attention and now the guidance has changed again for travel in safe countrys, if you do end up needing to cancel because of goverment guidance, they do assist. Its one of the few policies that have not changed so much https://insurance.americanexpress.co...nu-Coronavirus

If you do consider a plat card pm me, can share a referral.

I would note the HSBC Premier insurance is the best I’ve come across in light of COVID-19 as they cover medical expenses (but not others) even if you travel against UK government advice.

The quarantine costs are important too. Those hospitalized fit into a relatively easy "bucket." But, the vast majority of those infected but who are symptomatic do just fine at home. But, they cannot travel home for 14+ days and 14 days in a hotel with meals brought in can become quite pricey.

Interesting. Their website still has the blanket statement "Travel insurance is designed to cover for unforeseen events. Because of rolling, global media coverage, from 17 March coronavirus is now a known event. This means you will not be covered for any claim relating to the current global crisis COVID 19. For further information you should refer to your policy wording (specifically page 18 clause 13)." There is no clause 13 on page 18 of the policy wording.

Their FAQ does say what you say: https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/coronavi...avel-guidance/
but their blanket statement made me feel that they weren't going to be much use if I did travel.

One very significant advantage of the HSBC Premier travel insurance for anyone with a mild medical condition is that they have a very pragmatic list of common mild medical conditions, in particular ones well controlled by existing treatment, for which they do not charge extra. When something like mild asthma (controlled with inhalers) or mild hypertension (controlled with medication) can easily triple the cost of separate travel insurance, this is valuable. I can only imagine the telephone-number multiplication results of coronavirus cover + asthma or similar.

After laughing at our current, long standing, insurers re quote at 3.2x the price with the 'got the WuFlu then sort yourself out' proviso I was interested in this but after looking all over the place I cannot find a worldwide annual cover option. Every attempt want's a country. Do they do worldwide ( cws suggested they do and gave a price ) but for the life of me I cannot get it to quote for it

Pardon the ignorance, is this the one you can buy via MMB?

Just done a quote and I've got £250ish for my wife and I for annual worldwide cover. £145 for single-trip to the US in March.

It is rather poorly designed:

- if you want "Annual Multi Trip Europe" cover then select a European country
- if you want "Annual Multi Trip - Worldwide excluding USA" cover then select a country outside of Europe that is not the USA
- if you want "Annual Multi Trip - Worldwide including USA" cover then select the USA

Having had a quick look for myself and Mrs Wilsnunn, it is more expensive than our pre-COVID travel insurance but certainly not too expensive

Thanks for the tips there wilsnunn much appreciated

Coverage for US travel?
 

Please be sure to check and double check the fine print. Even though the BA insurance allows you to purchase coverage to the US it also says: You will not be covered if you travel to or choose to remain in a country or region where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has advised against all travel or all but essential travel or where you have travelled against the advice of the local authority at your journey destination. For further details, visit gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice.

As the US is on the do not travel to list, this coverage would be voided.

Does anyone know of any please that would cover travel to US including COVID?

I take it to mean they'll only cover you in the US when the US is removed from the UKFO's "do not travel" list