I just purchased a travel insurance policy for our next trip, and I am trying to make sense of what the policy says about strike coverage. Here is the disclaimer:

quote:

Travel Guard offers coverage for trip cancellation and interruption if a trip is delayed, cancelled or interrupted due to a sanctioned union labor strike for an airline or other travel supplier, as long as the coverage effective date is prior to when the strike is foreseeable. At Travel Guard, we consider a strike foreseeable on the date labor union members vote to approve a strike.

Below is the cutoff for trip cancellation/interruption claims resulting from these and other previously announced potential airline strikes. To further clarify, trip cancellation/interruption coverage does not cover a loss caused by these airlines for strikes for coverage with an effective date after these cutoff dates. Here are the cutoff dates:

Then it lists a bunch of dates including for example:
Alitalia Airlines: September 26, 2002

Would you interpret this to mean that their policy will not cover any cancellations due to strikes by Alitalia, since obviously all strikes would now be after 2002? Here is the link to the page with the list of dates. It seems as though they have listed dates when there actually were strikes, or strike votes, but once an airline or union is on the list, it never gets listed again with a later date. So it reads as if when a group goes on strike once, you never get coverage for strikes by that group again.

Loie often uses me as the "twisted logic in the small print" interpreter. I'd say that as written, far as I can see, yes. It looks on the surface as though this policy will not cover cancellations due to a strike against Alitalia. Now, some potential questions. What union voted on September 26, 2002 declaring its wilingness to strike Alitalia? Does a vote by the pilot's union void your policy in the event of a strike by the flight attendants' union?

And of course it seems like a really weasley policy if there is no "reinstatement" date. After all, in the last five years, every airline has probably had some union vote to agree to potentially strike if their demands aren't met by some date. If strictly interpreted to the letter of the policy as you've quoted it, the policy wouldn't cover any loss due to an actual strike going into effect on your travel date.

I'd call the company and ask about this. Sounds slippery to me. If they requalify their language in a more acceptable manner on the phone, get that in writing.

Roz - That language does sound ambigious, and I agree with Bucky - contact the company. When I insured my trip for this past April, I recall speaking with a representative about several questions, and the clarification I received made all the difference. And DO get it in writing.

Best of luck with it,

Terry