Is Coronavirus keeping you from booking liveaboard/overseas trips this year?

[Tippytoes12]

I have just come back from two weeks in Bali, booked relatively last minute due to work and Brexit and just before this all became big news. I flew with Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong, crew and some passengers wore facemasks. I was meant to fly to and from Gatwick, but these flights have now all been suspened.I ended up in Heathrow which disrupted my onward travel plans. Everywhere was really quiet, no Chinese divers, and the diving in Tulamben and Lembongan was awesome. And the rainy season weather was perfect.

We are holding off booking our October trip to Komodo for now. As healthy young at heart divers we are low risk of serious complications, so at the moment we would not personally worry about getting the virus, it’s just the possibility of more significant disruption to travel or worst of all going into compulsory isolation would be a concern.

 

[O-ring]

I tried to read through the DiveAssure liveaboard and single trip insurance fine print last night, but quickly got bored and found something else to do (read Jill Heinerth's book). There are a couple of sections of interest:

"a compulsory quarantine imposed in your place of residence that makes it impossible for you to travel or a travel warning being issued by the US Dept of State or the UK Foreign office within 30 days of your scheduled arrival".

"Policy must have been purchased at least 30 days prior to travel warning being issued or quarantine imposed."

"Policy must have been purchased before health situation developed in the region or the country of the booked journey that might give concern as to the safety and wellbeing of visitors"

 

[Jcp2]

From an underwriting standpoint, it makes sense to not insure against events that are not predictable from an actuarial view. Riots, civil unrest, and acts of terrorism or war tend to be on that exclusionary list as well.

 

[nippurmagnum]

I tried to read through the DiveAssure liveaboard and single trip insurance fine print last night, but quickly got bored and found something else to do (read Jill Heinerth's book). There are a couple of sections of interest:

"a compulsory quarantine imposed in your place of residence that makes it impossible for you to travel or a travel warning being issued by the US Dept of State or the UK Foreign office within 30 days of your scheduled arrival".

"Policy must have been purchased at least 30 days prior to travel warning being issued or quarantine imposed."

"Policy must have been purchased before health situation developed in the region or the country of the booked journey that might give concern as to the safety and wellbeing of visitors"

An excellent point — you can’t even rely on insurance with this situation. In Egypt, for instance, there was only a single reported case of Coronavirus as of a couple days ago. But that might be grounds enough for insurance to deny a claim if suddenly there is a spike in cases in Egypt, as there were were in Italy or South Korea, and all of the sudden your flights out of Egypt got cancelled.

 

[tridacna]

We just cancelled a trip to Sulawesi in June. Just too much uncertainty and risk.

 

[outofofficebrb]

No changes to my plans for now. In fact, I’m entertaining the idea of another liveaboard to pair with other parts of my trip and am hoping it goes on sale given hesitation to travel and such.

@Jcp2 speaking of terrorism, I was very surprised to see clauses in something I am covered by that specifically includes some terrorism coverage for trip interruption and cancellation because as you mention, they are almost always excluded in my experience.

The Dive Assure policy with travel warnings/health situation is at least addressed. Some policies don’t even cover or discuss it. Like named storm warnings, it’s no good if your government or another government has issued travel warnings or restricted entry if you fly through airport X, announces it, then you buy your policy and try to claim since you’re flying through airport X.

I am interested to know who else (which policies) addresses or includes this info.

there is a bit of grey here. At what point does something “might give a concern as to the safety and well being of visitors”? My experience with policies are specific exclusions won’t be covered and those are hard to argue but this point is very subjective. The other two points are more clear and defined to me. Maybe they work in tangent with one another but I am familiar with the policy as I carry it and it is a separate line item under “other coverage”. How much disinclination to travel does this cover if someone is concerned about safety and well being? As an example, if there’s 1 case of it somewhere and someone feels like it’s a concern, does that count? Many policies don’t cover disinclination to travel even if due to a health situation, sometimes unless there is a travel warning also issued or an epidemic or pandemic declared.

 

[MrBigfins]

Hmmmm........

Infections
COVID-19: Approximately 80,410 cases worldwide; 53 cases in the U.S. as of Feb. 25, 2020.

Flu: Estimated 1 billion cases worldwide; 9.3 million to 45 million cases in the U.S. per year.

Deaths
COVID-19: Approximately 2,708 deaths reported worldwide; 0 deaths in the U.S., as of Feb. 25, 2020.

Flu: 291,000 to 646,000 deaths worldwide; 12,000 to 61,000 deaths in the U.S. per year.

Spend billions on preventative measures?

 

[Snoweman]

My wife doesn't want to be locked in a sealed tube with a lot of strangers and recycled air. I can't say I really blame her.

On a more positive note, I think airline ticket prices may be coming down.....

 

[tridacna]

COVID-19 has a much better kill rate. And infection coefficient. Spend spend spend.

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

Nope.

Just booked a trip to the Philippines in November for the whole family. But then we also spent 3 weeks kind of deep into the Amazon rain forest when my daughter was 11 months old. Maybe I'm not really the best example of careful, well thought out parenting.