A Simple Explanation of the Difference Between Trip Interruption, Delays, and Cancellation Coverage

We get a lot of queries about the difference between trip cancellation insurance, trip interruption, and travel delay. The differences are not hard to understand, but they are extremely important when it comes to buying the right travel insurance to suit your vacation or business travel needs.

We wanted to share our latest short video with TripInsurance.com founder and CEO Dan Skilken, who has some clear and succinct advice about how to understand the difference between trip cancellation, trip interruption, and trip delay coverage.

The basic differences have to do with when you encounter a problem during your trip:

Trip cancellation insurance takes effect before you leave on your trip. It is usually triggered by some event that prevents you from leaving on your planned trip, such as a sudden death in the family, an accident on the way to the airport, your boss preventing you from taking time off at the last minute, or some other circumstance. Note that trip cancellation insurance does not cover you if you change your mind and just decide not to go. That would require cancel for any reason coverage with has its own unique parameters.

Trip interruption takes effect once you are on your trip. During your trip, if you are delayed because of illness, a transit strike, or any other covered reason that disrupts your planned travel, then trip interruption insurance will reimburse you for such things as prepaid hotel accommodations, booked excursions or tours, losses in train and air fare, etc. It also covers the additional cost to resume your trip or return home.

Travel delay insurance covers costs incurred when you are stranded in transit, such as the cost of a hotel room so you don’t have to sleep at the airport. For example, the airline is not required to provide a hotel in the event of a bad weather delay, so if the delay will be eight hours or more, travel delay insurance should cover it.

Watch the video to get an explanation from our resident travel insurance expert, and be sure to subscribe to the TripInsurance.com channel on YouTube to learn more about how to insure your travels against any kind of disaster.