The other day I read an article written by a travel insurance “expert” that talked about “named event” clauses found in travel insurance policies and stated that when a Tropical Storm or Hurricane is named it becomes a named event and therefore falls within the “named event” clause of a standard travel insurance policy.
I became confused reading this report because having read most travel insurance policies during my 35+ years in the travel insurance industry I have never come across a “named event” clause before and was wondering if I’ve missed something during all that time. The only thing that I can think of is that the author was probably referring to the condition that exists in all insurance contracts that the cause of financial loss must be unforeseen at the time that the policy is purchased.
But what does unforeseen mean? Surely it doesn’t mean that any possibilty of loss isn’t covered. In the case of trip cancellation insurance does it mean that if there is a possibility that you might have to cancel a trip because one of your family members might have an accident? No! The possibility that a family member might have an accident does not mean that the loss is foreseeable it just means that it is merely a possibility and therefore is insurable. What about the family member that is expected to die any day and you have already started to cancel your travel arrangements. Well we’ve gone past a possibility to something that now is high probability and therefore is now foreseen. This is like seeing the smoke rise from the house and calling your insurance agent for fire insurance; it won’t be covered.
So are there “named event” clauses in travel insurance policies? No, none of the policies that currently exist have such a clause but they all require that your loss be unforeseeable.