Does Travel Insurance Cover Flying Standby?

by Steve Dasseos on August 15, 2021

Hi Steve, I am a retired airline employee. Does flying Standby affect any trip cancellation travel insurance coverages including trip cancellation or interruption coverages? I’m also looking at the Cancel For Any Reason upgrade.

Yes, your coverages will be affected. Flying standby, or any other trip with no scheduled trip dates, would affect all the benefits which reference “Scheduled Departure Date” and the “Scheduled Return Date”. This would affect almost all the benefits in the policy, so it’s safe to say that you would be wasting your money buying a trip cancellation travel insurance policy.

There would also be no coverage under both the Cancel For Any Reason and Interrupt For Any Reason benefits where available. Since there is no Scheduled Departure Date for a standby flight, there are really no benefits.

A common definition of the Scheduled Departure Date is “the date on which You are originally scheduled to leave on Your Trip. This date is specified in the enrollment, itinerary or other travel documents”. Some policies say “the trip has defined Departure and Return Dates specified when the Insured applies”. Or, you may find the wording in the Exclusions: “This plan does not cover any loss caused by or resulting from: if the Insured’s tickets do not contain specific travel dates (open ticket).”

You could get a Travel Medical plan. There are per trip plans (I prefer these IMG plans) and Annual Medical plans. If you don’t live in Maryland, New York or Washington, the Geo Blue Trekker is the best Annual Medical plan available.

I hope this makes sense. If you want the right travel insurance advice, call us at 1-888-407-3854 and we’ll help you figure it all out.


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I hope this makes sense. If you want the right travel insurance advice, call us at 1-888-407-3854 and we'll help you figure it all out.

Now, a word from our sponsor: TripInsuranceStore.com (Travel Forums' Most Recommended Travel Insurance Website)

PS - If you liked what you read, please Subscribe to my Blog.

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