Travel insurance benefits that are paid as a result of common carrier failures include: trip delays, missed connections, and baggage loss and delay. For example, your travel insurance certificate may include text like the following (from Travelex’s Travel Select plan certificate):
Trip Delay must be caused by or result from:
1. Common Carrier delay; or
In addition, some travel insurance plans include common carrier as a covered reason for trip cancellation and interruption benefits with text like the following (from Travel Insured International’s Worldwide Trip Protector Gold plan certificate):
Weather which causes complete cessation of services of Your Common Carrier for at least 24
consecutive hours
So we decided to find out whether the term common carrier also applied to trains. Every travel insurance plan will have a plan certificate and in that document are the definitions that explain the specifics of your travel insurance coverage. In fact, travel insurance plan certificates usually have a specific definitions section where the terms used in the document are defined.
How Travel Insurance defines Common Carrier
We looked through a number of travel insurance plan certificates and found that the term ‘common carrier’ is typically defined in the definitions included with the policy.
Travel Guard and Travelex insurance plans define common carrier as:
“Common Carrier” means an air, land, or sea conveyance operated under a license for the transportation of passengers for hire.
Travel Insured International defines common carrier as:
“Common Carrier” means any regularly scheduled land, sea, and/or air conveyance operating under a valid license for the transportation of passengers for hire.
So, as long as the train you are traveling on during your trip is operating under a valid license for the purpose of transporting passengers for a fee, then your travel insurance coverage will provide benefits.
Rockets and submarines not included
Travel insurance certificate definitions for common carrier does not include (at least not yet): space rockets and submarines. So, for the time being there is no travel insurance for deep sea diving of space exploration.
As always, it’s important to carefully read your travel insurance plan document to understand the specifics of your benefits as well as the limitations and exclusions.
