This morning I read an article in the Hartford Courant that says that travel insurance policies contain a “named event” clause. The article goes on to say that because of this clause that if you buy a policy after a tropical storm is named there will be no coverage within the policy. Unfortunately this isn’t true. There are no “named event” clauses in travel insurance policies. What companies rely on is their requirement that the event be “unforeseeable” at the time you buy your policy. Some companies, for the sake of simplicity, say that coverage won’t exist if you buy your insurance after the storm is named however, their policies don’t specifically state that and they rely on whether or not it was foreseeable by the client on the day they purchased the insurance.
Common sense says that a delay or cancellation of your trip due to a storm might not always be apparent when you buy the insurance. There are many factors that influence the determination that a company has to make; what is foreseeable to one person in one city might be unforeseeable to another person in a different city.