Squaremouth, the US-based comparison engine, spoke to 10 travel insurance providers, who explained how they were adding benefits to address traveller concerns; extending coverage for contracting Covid-19; and developing new policies geared towards domestic travellers.

Many insurers are developing policies that offer more coverage for some of the impacts of a future pandemic, such as travel warnings and CDC alerts – Trawick International’s Vice-President of Trip Cancellation Bailey Foster detailed that the company had launched new plans that include coverage for Level 4 Travel Warnings.

Extending coverage and continuing to offer cancellation and medical benefits relating to Covid-19 on new policies purchased will also be a big priority for travel insurance providers going forward.

Furthermore, travel insurers will be creating more products geared toward the domestic traveller, which includes trip cancellation coverage and low medical benefits. Certainly, it’s no secret that domestic travel is growing more popular as 2020 progresses. Squaremouth’s recent survey revealed that 40 per cent of customers plan to travel domestically following Covid-19, compared to just 11 per cent in previous years.

“Most US travellers can be covered by health insurance when traveling within the US, so they may need little to no medical coverage from their travel insurance,” said Jessica Burns, Vice-President of Tin Leg. “Trip cancellation coverage will be the most important benefit for domestic travellers, as it can reimburse 100 per cent of their non-refundable trip cost if they have to cancel for a covered reason.” And so, it will be no great surprise that the Cancel for Any Reason upgrade will prevail, following its increased popularity during the pandemic.

It’s great to see that many travel insurers are putting customers’ needs top of mind as we begin to emerge into the post-Covid world. However, it would be interesting to know how travel insurers plan to cover those people more vulnerable to the virus. Will the cost of travel insurance increase for over-70s, for example? And how will annual travel insurance policies change as many destinations now have drastically different risk profiles? No doubt there’s a lot to consider.