How far does travel insurance cover stretch?

Question

My wife and I are traveling soon, and have purchased separate travel insurance for the trip. Most of our children are not traveling with us.

Our daughter, over 18 but a dependent, fell ill recently, and while she will be OK and won't impact on our ability to travel it did make us wonder -> If she had actually gotten sick enough that we'd have had to change or cancel our travel arrangements, would typical/generic travel insurance have covered this? Or would it normally only cover the travelers themselves? And would it have been any different if she were younger (our other kids are teens).

Are changes/cancelations due to health of non-traveling dependents typically covered by travel insurance?

Answer 1

The most recent travel insurance policy I bought should cover this:

We may cover journey changes caused by the ill-health of someone important to you

A relevant person is a person who’s important to you but isn’t named on your Certificate of Insurance and is one of the following.

• A member of your immediate family
• Your travel companion
• A person directly related to the primary purpose of your journey

As your daughter is "immediate family" but is not a member of your travel party, changes to your travel should be eligible to be covered. Of course, the wording says "We may cover..." so it's still up to the policy provider's decision.

For your own travel insurance, a careful reading of the policy wording document should turn up something similar.