Does Travel Insurance Cover Snow Storms?

Planning a getaway during the winter months to escape cold weather at home, enjoy winter sports, or visit family and friends? Maybe you’re leaving your home in Nebraska for a Caribbean cruise, or maybe you’re flying to Switzerland to go skiing?

Whatever your plans, don’t let concerns about winter storms put a damper on your trip. If a blizzard or icy conditions affect your travel schedule, our Travelex travel insurance with winter storm coverage can help make sure that you feel taken care of if you have unforeseen delays or cancellations.

What is a winter storm and how can it impact my trip?

A winter storm is a weather event that often brings severe winter weather conditions like heavy snowfall, blizzards, sleet, and icy rain along with it.

They can easily ruin your travel plans because they can cause road closures, airport shutdowns, or conditions that make it too risky to travel.

So, if you’re traveling in winter, you could experience flight delays, cancellations, missed connections, issues reaching your destination in an owned or rented vehicle, and more.

Does Travelex travel insurance include winter storm coverage?

Both our Travel Basic and Travel Select plans can provide coverage if your trip gets disrupted because of a winter storm.

At Travelex, our winter storm insurance can help refund expenses that come up because of trip cancellations, trip delays, trip interruptions, and missed connections.

Have more questions about our winter storm coverage? You can lean on our customer service team for support.

What are the benefit limits for Travelex’s winter storm coverage?

The amount you can be reimbursed for storm insurance coverage depends on which of our plans you choose.

Here's how much of your unexpected costs you could get back for each plan:

Don’t forget that our travel protection plans with storm insurance coverage can help you only when an unforeseen covered incident changes your trip plans. So, if you file a claim, we can only give you winter storm coverage because of a situation that you didn’t expect or know about beforehand.

What is an unforeseen covered event when it comes to winter storms?

If your plan comes with winter storm coverage and you have an unforeseen change of plans because of a snowstorm, we can help if you run into an issue like:

• A snowstorm cancels your flight.
• You or your traveling companion’s main home is snowed in from a blizzard and uninhabitable.
• You can’t get to your destination because a fallen tree is blocking the road.
• Before departing on your trip with our Travel Select plan, inclement weather cancels an event you were scheduled to attend. This only counts as an unforeseen covered event if going to the event was the only reason for your trip and the length of the trip is not more than 48 hours before or after the event.

Need some more clarification on unforeseen covered events? Call our customer service team for support at 1-800-228-9792.

Does Travelex’s storm insurance coverage include flight disruptions?

Yes, our winter storm coverage through both the Travel Basic and Travel Select plans can help you if a winter storm changes your flight plans.

Here’s how our plans can offer support if you have a flight disruption because of a winter storm:

Trip Cancellation coverage

Worried a winter storm might prevent your trip from happening? If you have one of our travel protection plans that includes storm insurance coverage, you can be repaid for a flight cancellation because of inclement weather, as long as you call off your trip before the departure date. Extra travel costs you spend to reach your destination and unused or prepaid parts of your trip can also be reimbursed.

Important: If you cancel your vacation because of a winter storm, remember to let us know within 72 hours.

Trip Interruption coverage

If an unexpected snowstorm puts your vacation on hold, we can help while you get your plans back on track. Our storm insurance coverage can help take care of your unused, prepaid nonrefundable, and insured expenses. Plus, if you need to rush back home or rejoin your trip, or you're delayed reaching your destination, we can help repay those extra travel costs, too.

Our winter storm coverage can also cover extra costs that come up if the person you’re traveling with suddenly can’t join the trip. If your intended travel companion can’t make it on the vacation because of an unforeseen covered reason, we can help you get additional accommodation expenses back in your pocket.

Important: Just like with trip cancellations, be sure to tell our Travelex team within 72 hours of a trip interruption.

Trip Delay coverage

Snowstorm slowing down your flight departure? If your flight is delayed for at least five hours, our winter storm coverage can reimburse you for your reasonable expenses during your delay, such as food, taxi fares, and hotel stays.

Make sure to save all your receipts for purchases you make while delayed so you can send them in with your claim.

Important: You can have travel storm insurance coverage for one delay during your vacation. So, if you are delayed more than once, we can help pay back expenses from the costliest delay.

Missed Connection coverage

You may have scheduled your connecting flights wisely with enough time in-between to cruise to the next gate. But what if wintry weather hits and delays your first flight — causing you to miss your second flight?

If you miss a flight because the previous one was canceled or delayed for at least three consecutive hours, our winter storm insurance coverage can help. We can refund you for extra transportation costs and unused, prepaid, and non-refundable expenses — as long as the airline validates the flight delay for a covered reason.

Remember: Be sure to arrange your domestic connecting flights with at least an hour gap in-between and international flights with at least a two-hour gap. Otherwise, you may not be able to use your winter storm coverage for a missed connection.

What are some other ways travel insurance with winter storm coverage can help me during my trip?

Travel storm insurance coverage can do much more than reimburse you for flight disruptions.

Our plans can help if you find yourself in an unexpected and unfortunate situation like:

• You have the Travel Select plan, and because too much snow builds up on the roof of your rental home, it collapses and you can’t stay there.
• You slip and fall on ice and need an unanticipated visit to the emergency room.
• Your suitcase is lost after a winter storm cancels your connecting flight.
• You get in a traffic accident en route to your destination because of icy roads.

Travel insurance with winter storm coverage can help with urgent medical expenses, issues with luggage, changes of plans, and more.

Also, you can get even more protection if you add our optional upgrades to the Travel Select plan. This way, you can get help with situations like adventure sports incidents.

How can I reach the Travelex 24/7 assistance team if my trip is impacted by a winter storm?

If you have a Travelex plan, you have two convenient methods to get in touch with our travel assistance experts:

• Use the tap-to-call travel assistance feature on our Travelex Travel On app. We recommend you download the app prior to your journey to have easy access to its features and your policy details.
• Call the Travelex Emergency Assistance team. For travelers in the U.S. or Canada, you can dial 1-844-215-1672 toll-free. If you find yourself outside of the U.S. or Canada, you can make a collect call to 1-647-775-8042.

How can I receive winter storm travel alerts during my trip?

It’s helpful to stay up to date with our travel alerts page, because we may list winter storms that could affect your trip at any time.

If you have one of our Travelex plans, you can also get instant safety notifications, destination information, and more from our Travel On app. It’s smart to download the app right after purchasing our travel insurance so you can be in the know before departing.

Does Travelex offer travel insurance coverage for trip cancellation for any reason?

With both the Travel Basic and Travel Select plans, you can receive trip cancellation coverage for specific reasons.

However, if you want to be able to cancel your trip for any reason at all—not just winter storms—then consider adding our Cancel for Any Reason upgrade if you’ve chosen our Travel Select plan. This upgrade lets you cancel your trip up to 48 hours before it starts so you can get reimbursed with up to 75% of your insured trip expenses (up to $7,500).

You can use the Cancel for Any Reason upgrade for a trip cost up to $10,000 per person if you’ve insured all nonrefundable trip expenses, your trip is no longer than 30 days, and you simultaneously bought the upgrade and your Travel Select policy within 15 days of your first trip cost.

Why do I need storm insurance if my scheduled airline might refund me?

Airlines have specific rules around cancelling flights which could make getting your money back tricky, especially if you’ve bought a ticket that wasn't refundable.

Even when the airline does give you a refund for a flight cancellation, it's still worthwhile to have travel insurance with winter storm coverage. This is because the refund from the airline only covers the cost of your ticket, not other expenses you may have already paid for, like a hotel or a tour at your destination that you can't take because of the cancelled flight. So, the benefit of travel insurance for bad weather isn't just that it offers coverage for your flight, but that it also protects the rest of your trip costs.

Is travel insurance worth it for winter storms?

If you’re traveling in the winter, there’s a chance that severe weather could coincide with your trip schedule — and you can’t always predict if a snowstorm is going to unravel your vacation plans.

Winter storm coverage through travel insurance can help keep you from losing trip funds because of events you didn’t think would happen, like flight cancellations, delays, and missed connections.

How do I file a claim for a winter storm?

If you have a Travelex protection plan and want to file a claim for a winter storm, you can file the claim using our online claims portal.

If you need assistance with your claim, please contact our claims team:

Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company

• Phone: 1-855-205-6054
• Email: [email protected]

Don’t let your trip funds get snowed in, too: Consider storm insurance

Having winter storm coverage can feel like you’ve just been dug out of the snow: a feeling of relief when things go wrong and financial support and assistance when you need it most.

Make sure you know all about your storm insurance policy benefits and exclusions before you depart so you are prepared in case something unanticipated does come up.

Want more information on winter storm coverage with travel insurance? You can call our customer service team at 1-800-228-9792 from Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. CST.

Want to safeguard your vacation from winter storms?

Help protect your trip from unexpected winter storms with our travel insurance.