Independent travel agent offers cover for Covid-19 and pandemics

Independent UK travel agent Hays Travel is offering its customers travel insurance that includes cover for Covid-19, as well as any other diseases classified as a pandemic or epidemic, reported Gazette Live.

Supplied by insurers Allianz and Rush Insurance Services, the new package is being offered as standard across all of Hays Travel’s policies.

The insurance covers the cancellation or curtailment of the holiday, emergency medical expenses and repatriation following a diagnosis of Covid-19, or any other disease classified as a pandemic or epidemic.

Applicable for holidays in the UK or abroad, the coverage also extends to cruises, where travellers may be confined to their cabins and miss out on port stops or prepaid excursions because of pandemics.

The insurance is designed so that if the traveller, their companions, immediate family, colleagues or the person the travelling party were going to stay with are diagnosed with Covid-19 before the trip, meaning the traveller has to quarantine or isolate, the holiday can be cancelled and the full cost reclaimed.

Furthermore, if anyone travelling becomes ill with Covid-19 during the holiday and are therefore required to quarantine, the insurance policy will pay for emergency medical and associated expenses, as well as cover the costs of getting the traveller home.

John Hays, managing director and co-owner of Hays Travel, said the new policy aims to give holidaymakers “real confidence”.

He continued: “As people are beginning to book their holidays again we wanted to give them real confidence that if they are affected by Covid-19, they will not lose out financially, which would be one thing less to worry about should the worst happen.

“We have worked hard with our partners to put together insurance cover that answers the concerns that many of our customers naturally have as we gradually emerge from the lockdown.

“We are now including explicit references to being diagnosed with an epidemic or pandemic disease, such as Covid-19, as standard with all travel insurance policies. We have ensured there is cover for all permutations we can think of because we want our customers to go on holiday, whether home or abroad, and feel secure about the cover they’ve got.

“We’ve been doing all we can to give customers confidence and get the travel industry bouncing back. Introducing this new insurance cover for everyone is another step forward. We have also introduced our Peace of Mind Guarantee, which on certain holidays means you can cancel or change free of charge for any reason, up to six weeks before you travel.”