Does travel insurance cover cancelled, delayed and missed flights?

When you’ve looked forward to a holiday for ages you want everything to go to schedule. After all, time and timings matter – every link in the chain of that gets you to your destination, from the moment your 3am alarm goes off, hangs by a thread.

Luckily, most of these many dots connect, leading to a fabulous getaway to remember. But even the best-laid holiday plans can encounter a hiccup, often starting at the airport.

Having travel insurance can help when you don’t get to jet off as punctually as you expect to.

Does travel insurance cover delayed flights?

Everyone can cope with, and usually expects, a bit of delay with a flight – and nothing seems to take off on time anymore, even once you’re buckled into in your seat on the plane bang on time!

But if you’ve got over an hour to wait before being told your gate number, things can begin to have knock-on effects on your plans and your purse.

Travel cover does vary between providers, so you should check if it includes cover for flights delays before you buy it. To be sure, see if you can download a copy of the policy booklet and search it (using the ‘find’ command or CTRL + F) for the words ‘delay’ and ‘flight’ to get into the detail.

Your cover might help to reimburse you for expenses of extra food and non-alcoholic drinks that you’d need to sustain you while you wait. With Saga’s travel insurance it pays out £35 for the first full 12 hours’ delay you experience and £15 for every full 12-hour period after that to each person on the policy who’s affected.

What’s special with Saga Travel Insurance is policyholders can turn to Delayed Flight Assistance, which gets you into a private lounge if your flight’s delayed by over an hour, even for your return flights. You just need to register your flights in advance.

Can travel insurance help with cancelled flights?

Most travel insurance includes cancellation cover, but to know for sure what it provides for cancelled flights, you need to read your policy’s details.

General cancellation cover normally covers pay-outs if you have to cancel your holiday due to certain circumstances, such as:

• being too ill to travel
• a bereavement
• redundancy
• strikes or industrial action not announced before arranging your trip and insurance
• jury service.

Cancellation cover generally only pays out on things that you can’t get refunded, and a totally cancelled flight will likely be refunded by the airline.

Does travel insurance cover missed flights?

Travel insurance can help if things don’t go to plan due to ‘cancellation’ elsewhere along the line, such as train and coach journeys being disrupted.

For example, with Saga Travel Insurance you’re covered for missed flights, so you can claim up to £1,000 for any extra accommodation and travel costs you have to pay to reach your destination. This includes if you arrive too late to take off because of late connecting flights and public transport – or even your car breaking down or having a traffic accident.

If your flight is severely delayed – check with the insurance provider for how long a delay needs to be to be classed as ‘severe’ – or there are such bad conditions your flight can’t go ahead, you may be covered for abandoning your holiday plans altogether.

Also, if you do get away and there’s disruption to your return flight, Saga Travel Insurance will cover you for ‘enforced stay’ with up to £1,000 for travel expenses if after a delay of over 24 hours and the airline cannot help, you have to make alternative arrangements get home.

Can travel insurance help with other flight problems?

Most holidays are ATOL protected if they’re bought as a package – that is, a flight and another component that’s usually accommodation. The ATOL protection was designed to help passengers who are stranded abroad if the holiday company they booked with goes into administration or stops trading abruptly.

If you haven’t bought a package holiday and booked your flight and accommodation separately yourself, you won’t have ATOL protection.

One thing to remember when booking your flights, hotel and excursions is to use your credit card when you buy them. This gives you another layer of protection and reimbursement under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 for breach of contract for products and services costing over £100. This means if you don’t get what you paid for, the credit card company should refund your payment.

Can I get compensation for delayed or cancelled flights?

If your flight gets delayed or cancelled, your travel insurance might be able to help. But your first port of call should be your airline. Usually they’ll keep you updated if the departure time deviates a little between booking and take-off – and they’ll often notify you of any rescheduling weeks or months in advance.

Once you’re within 14 days of departure, you then have legislation to turn to in the form of the EU/UK regulation no. 261/2004. This marvellous piece of consumer protection provides extensive rules on compensation and assistance when flights are cancelled or delayed. And although this legislation was initiated by the EU, it has been adopted into UK law, so the fact we aren’t an EU member is not an issue.

One thing that’s important to bear in mind is that airlines only need to pay compensation if the cause of the problem was their fault or within their control to fix.

So things such as severe weather conditions, industrial action by airport operations and security alerts will not be classed as the airline’s fault – understaffing, operational errors and seat over-booking are.

If ‘extraordinary circumstances’ have been mentioned by the airline, this means the delays are not their fault and they are not expected to pay out compensation. In these circumstances, travel insurance can take up the slack when flights are delayed or cancelled beyond the airline’s control.

You’ll have to check your particular insurance policy, but how Saga’s travel insurance can help out when it comes to extreme weather, strikes by baggage handlers and sudden airspace closure affecting flights.

The amounts are for each passenger. Similar amounts are due with 14 to 7 days’ notice as well as 50% for delays below the time-delayed threshold.

As well as compensation for delays and cancellations, your airline should also offer to help you while you wait. This could include vouchers for food and non-alcoholic drinks, finding a way for you to phone or email someone and even sorting out accommodation if things go very wrong.

If you’re elsewhere in the world, you may still be able to get some help from the airport or your airline if there are delays and cancellations. Canada, for example, has legislation in place that’s similar to the EU/UK regulations.

So yes, travel insurance can help with cancelled, delayed and missed flights, but you need to check what each policy and provider offers in terms of cover and the amounts you can claim.