Does Travel Insurance Cover Job Loss?

Losing your job when you have a trip planned can give a traveler pause: should you take your trip anyway or cancel it and save the money? If you recently lost your job and have an insured trip planned, you may be wondering ‘Does my travel insurance cover job loss?’

Yes, some travel insurance plans include job loss as a covered reason for cancelling your trip. If your travel insurance plan lists job loss as a covered reason to cancel, you can cancel your trip and make a claim to recover your non-refundable trip expenses and focus on finding a new job.

Note: some travel insurance plans also include being transferred under the covered reasons to cancel your trip (see the limits placed on this coverage below).

Job loss coverage is isolated to trip cancellation

While the covered reasons listed in travel insurance coverage for pre-departure trip cancellation benefits is often lumped together with the coverage for post-departure trip interruption, the benefits that cover job loss are isolated to trip cancellation. As in, you must have lost your job prior to your trip departure and make a travel insurance claim to collect your non-refundable trip expenses as a result of cancelling your trip.

Specifically, job loss is not a covered reason to interrupt your trip and come home, so you won’t be able to make a claim on your trip interruption coverage.

Limits on travel insurance coverage for job loss

As with all insurance plans, travel insurance places limits on coverage to ensure a little control over how much the travel insurance provider will have to pay out in the event of a loss. To that end, travel insurance cover for job loss will include restrictions like these:

• It must be an involuntary termination or layoff and not within your control. (This means you can’t quit your job and then expect to make a travel insurance claim.)
• You must have been employed continuously with the same employer for a certain period of time. (Typically the amount of time is 1 year prior to the termination or layoff and so it’s not applicable to temporary workers, independent contractors or the self-employed.)
• If it’s a job transfer that’s causing your travel insurance claim, it must be a permanent transfer and it must be over a certain number of miles (usually around 250) from your previous employment location.