Insurance warning as Storm Éowyn causes major disruption

An insurance warning has been issued as heavy winds cause major disruption across the UK.

Storm Éowyn has slammed into the UK, with yellow, amber and even red warnings being issued by the Met Office.

This is causing issues to services, with Sky News reporting that multiple flights departing from London Heathrow Airport, Newcastle Airport and Liverpool Airport have been cancelled.

Dozens of flights from Glasgow and Edinburgh, which are areas where a red alert is in place, were also cancelled on Friday morning.

Meanwhile, National Rail said: “You are advised not to travel across Scotland and many parts of northern England today.

“A do not travel message has been issued from multiple train operators.”

In a message to policyholders, Simon McCulloch, chief commercial officer at Staysure, said that it was “important to understand what your insurance policy includes and excludes” due to the disruption.

“For example, cancellations due to adverse weather may not automatically be covered under the terms and conditions of your policy, as all policies vary and depend upon the level of cover you have,” he said.

“With 12 named storms in the 2023/24 storm season, superseding the year before, storms that impact travel plans are becoming more frequent and more disruptive, so getting cover that mitigates this is worth considering.”

IT outage

Meanwhile, 2024 also saw disruption coming from an IT outage, with planes grounded and flights delayed as a result.

In July that year, Crowdstrike experienced a faulty software update that affected around 8.5 million Windows hosts and led to global incurred losses of around $1.5bn (£1.12bn).

Sid Mouncey, chief executive at insurtech Blink Parametric, said it had led to the travel insurance market being “quite buoyant”.

He added: “As global events continue to shape the travel landscape, we have a busy pipeline of insurance and brand partners that are ramping up their claims responsiveness and customer care efforts to deliver effective support in real-time.”