Travel insurance advice needed please

[DartmoorChef]

We are flying out to lanzarote next month and im about to get our insurance.

Given the current coronavirus situation we are anxious to make sure we have cover that will pay our wages etc if we are suddenly stuck out there in a quarantined hotel, our car will be sat at Gatwick for longer etc.

Can anyone give me any help or suggestions please.

Isn’t travel insurance just for travel related expenses, like the cost of medical care abroad and cancelled flights etc. I thought critical illness cover was for payment of wages when ill, although I doubt there’s any insurance policy you can get for having a terrible cold. If you had a nasty cold at home and were off work, would you have insurance to pay your wages in that case?

She's not talking about a terrible cold, but Covid-19, for which one might be put into quarantine.

Yes, you can find policies that will pay to cover your expenses in event of prolonged stay for reasons covered by the policy. I'm not sure they wouid cover loss of earnings though - you'd have to ask. But they should cover additional accommodation, a per diem for expenses, costs of rearranged travel.

If they are still covering Covid-19 - once an epidemic has begun, it may be excluded from cover (you can never insure against something that's already happening). You'll have to ask each company when you get your quotes

Yes most won't know cover it if you haven't already taken it out. Read the policy very carefully.

I don't think you would get cover for that, as it's not a usual travel insurance item and especially not now and if you did it would be so expensive that it wouldn't be worth buying.

Remember that there's hundreds of thousands if not millions of people on holiday right now and there's only a few hotels and cruise ships under quarantine. If you ended up being one of the unlucky ones could you just use more of your annual leave allowance to cover it?

You could extend your car parking booking online or ask a friend or relative to collect it for you if you left a key with them just in case.

If the situation escalated in the next month and you couldn't put plans in place for something that's probably quite unlikely the best course of action would be probably not to travel. You'd probably lose the cost of your holiday unless a FCO 'do not travel' advisory is in force but you might be able to get your leave back to use at another time and you'd save the money you would have spent on holiday.

I think you'll struggle to find a policy that covers loss of earnings. It's more typically extra expenses (like airport parking, pet boarding) arising from accident/illness/delays.

And even then a lot of the policies won't cover as it's a known risk at the time of taking out the policy.
Take out insurance when you book, folks (or have an annual policy - also covers you for UK holidays/weekends away).

yep, too late even if it is available. This is one of many reasons that you insure when you book. You'll be stuffed if a kid gets chicken pox, a relative gets ill or any of the other reasons why a holiday gets cancelled.