Travel Industry News
For travelers an Icelandic pain in the ash
Saturday, 22, May 2010
Figuring out whether travel insurance covers your canceled trip can be as hard to fathom as the pronunciation of the volcano causing all the trouble (Eyjafjallajokull).As drifting ash from the Icelandic volcano played havoc with flight schedules again this week, worried travelers continued to besiege trip insurers with one question: Am I covered?
No event in recent memory, not even the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has disrupted travel like the ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which at one point last month grounded nearly 30% of the world's air traffic and stranded millions of fliers for days in northern Europe and elsewhere.For those holding travel-insurance policies, the finer points of terms such as "unforeseen event" can mean the difference between getting thousands of dollars in refunds from deposits on interrupted and cancelled trips or nothing.
