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My travel insurance has a standard travel warning exclusion that reads:

We do not insure you for any event that is caused by or arises from you failing to follow advice or take heed of a warning from:

− any government; or

− any official body; or

− any publication or broadcast by any member of the mass media; or

(This seems like overly broad language. Couldn't they just point to some fringe government that recommends never travelling anywhere ever to void any claim?).

As a result of the Easter terror attacks in Sri Lanka, the Australian government has issued a 'reconsider your need to travel' advisory.

I understand that I can't recieve specific legal advice here - but is there a framework for understanding/interpreting travel warnings and travel insurance?

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    Ok, this resource here seems to do exactly what I need: finder.com.au/travel-insurance-travel-warnings
    – dwjohnston
    Commented May 8, 2019 at 7:46
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    Interesting. I was thinking an other kind of warnings: "evacuate" or such precise and short term warnings, not generic country warnings. and "any government" is too broad. I just hope this is a double edge sword: you can cancel and get money back if any mass media or government advice you not to go in a place.
    – Giacomo Catenazzi
    Commented May 8, 2019 at 7:49
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    @dwjohnston Please post that as an answer and summarize the key points. That will be useful to future visitors to the site who might be wondering the same thing.
    – David Richerby
    Commented May 8, 2019 at 7:57
  • @GiacomoCatenazzi It's been a week since you asked OP to create an answer from his very good link-resource, so I wrote an answer based on that. Dwjohnston, feel free to edit it or write your own, in case I missed something important.
    – gmauch
    Commented May 15, 2019 at 12:59

1 Answer 1

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There is not a single answer, since each insurance provider dictates in which cases you are covered on not, regarding travel warnings issued by government, and this might change from time to time, up to the insurance brand discretion.

Broadly speaking there are 2 types of warnings:

  1. Reconsider your need to travel
  2. Do not travel

Some brands do not cover the insurer if any of those warnings is issued, other ones do provide cover in case a Reconsider your need to travel warning is issued AND "reasonable care" is taken, like not deliberately putting yourself in danger and avoiding specific parts of a country which may actually be considered Do not travel.

This link provides a fair amount of information about insurance brands and their coverage, as well as general information about travel warnings. Might be worth to check, since this info might be updated at any time!

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