Travel Insurers and COVID-19 Lawsuits

While the pandemic irreversibly changed the workplace for employers and employees, COVID-19 also shaped the travel industry globally. Many Canadians were forced to cancel trips in 2020 due to the pandemic and are still waiting to be compensated by their travel insurance providers.

Disability lawyer and co-founding partner Sivan Tumarkin at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP spoke with Institutional Travel and Health Insurance Journal on the repercussion of cancelled trips and insurance claims yet to be redeemed.

“Thousands, if not tens and hundreds of thousands, of individuals, have made trip cancellation insurance claims since the beginning of 2020, only to be denied by their insurers and told that because they were offered credits and/or vouchers for their flights, resorts, etc., they are disentitled from receiving reimbursement under their insurance policies,” Tumarkin states.

Tumarkin goes on to explain that insurers are refusing to provide their customers with the product they purchased. “The reality is that the vast majority of travel insurance policies I have looked at do not give insurers the right to take this position. Unless the policy expressly states that travel or a credit disentitles an insured individual from the reimbursement for trip cancellation, they must receive that reimbursement under the policy.”