Does Travel Insurance Cover Missed Connections?

There are many reasons a traveler may miss a connection and a missed connection can cause big problems for a cruise traveler. If the traveler arrives too late to the port and their cruise sails without them, they’ll have to buy a new ticket and coordinate catching up to the ship in another port of call. You’ll also have to pay unexpected expenses like last-minute hotel reservations, taxi cab rides and meals you’re missing on the cruise.

With the limits on airline compensation for missed flights and given the unpredictability of weather, hurricanes, mechanical problems, messy flight plans, and more, many travelers want to know: does travel insurance cover missed connections?

It does … with some exceptions.

How travel insurance covers missed connections

Travel insurance covers missed connections by reimbursing the traveler for unexpected costs due to flight change fees, additional meals, transportation and lodging in the event you miss a flight due to bad weather, an accident, or other unexpected event.

The following are some covered events that illustrate how missed connection coverage works:

• The flights are overbooked and you’re involuntarily bumped from your flight.
• The airplane is experiencing mechanical problems and the delay causes you to miss your connecting flight.
• A tornado temporarily stopped all flights out of the airport and the afternoon’s delay made you miss your connection.
• The airline crew got in late the night before and the flight was delayed to ensure they had the required rest time in between flights.

You’ll need documentation when you make a claim, so be sure to keep track of your flight information and when something happens to cause a delay that dominoes into a missed connection, ask the gate agent for some documentation.

Tight connections don’t count!

Your travel insurance provider will want to know that you scheduled your connection with a comfortable amount of time in between flights. If you schedule a tight connection and a short delay caused you to miss the next flight, you might not be able to make a claim.