There is a version of this post I have been meaning to write for a long time.
Travel insurance is one of those topics that most travelers treat as fine print — something to skim, select, and file away until it’s needed. In six years of designing international journeys, I have watched that approach cost people in ways that were entirely preventable. Not catastrophic losses, most of the time. But real ones. A non-refundable deposit gone because of a medical issue. A flight delay that became a missed connection that became two unplanned nights in a city, covered by nothing.
What’s happening in the world right now has made this conversation impossible to put off any longer. So I’m writing it.
What Twelve Days of War Has Done to International Travel
On February 28, U.S. and Israeli forces launched military strikes against Iran. What followed was one of the most significant aviation disruptions since the COVID pandemic.
Dubai International — the world’s busiest airport for international passengers — was evacuated after retaliatory Iranian strikes and has been operating in severely limited capacity since. Doha’s Hamad International suspended operations entirely for several days. Abu Dhabi followed. More than 46,000 flights were cancelled in and out of the Middle East in the first twelve days. Tens of thousands of travelers were stranded across the Gulf. The U.S. State Department issued departure advisories for more than a dozen countries in the region.
The disruptions extend well beyond the conflict zone. Jet fuel was priced at roughly $2.11 per gallon at the start of this year. By March 10, it had risen to $3.40 — an increase of more than 60 percent — driven by the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which handles approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil. Airlines everywhere are absorbing those costs. Fares are rising. Routings that long passed through Gulf hubs are being quietly rerouted elsewhere.
I am not writing this to alarm anyone. The destinations most of my clients travel to — East Africa, Southern Africa, the Amazon, the Galápagos, and expedition cruise regions — are not part of this conflict. The Maasai Mara is open. The Okavango is open. The journeys I am designing for 2026 and 2027 are moving forward.
What has changed is the infrastructure between you and those destinations. And that is exactly what travel insurance is supposed to address. Which brings me to the part most travelers don’t know.
What a Good Policy Actually Covers
A comprehensive travel insurance policy is built around protections that remain valuable regardless of what’s happening in the world. Medical emergencies abroad. Emergency evacuation. Trip cancellation for covered reasons — your own serious illness, a death in the family, severe weather at your destination. Lost or delayed baggage. Trip delay reimbursement for additional hotels and meals when a disruption strands you somewhere you didn’t plan to be.
These are the foundation. They are not optional, and they are not the part most travelers misunderstand.
The part most travelers misunderstand is what comes next.
The War Exclusion Clause
Nearly every standard travel insurance policy contains a war exclusion clause. The specific language varies, but the principle is consistent: losses arising directly from an act of war may not be covered.
What this means in practice is more nuanced than it sounds. Whether the clause applies depends on your policy’s specific definitions, when you purchased the policy, relative to when the conflict began, where your journey was routed, and the precise nature of your disruption. A traveler stranded in Dubai because of Iranian strikes is in a different position than a traveler whose Nairobi flight was delayed because their connection was rerouted through Istanbul.
The details live in the full policy language — particularly the definitions section — not in the summary documents most of us read at purchase. If you have an upcoming international journey and any part of your routing touches the Gulf, it is worth reading that language and calling your insurer with a direct question: Does this conflict affect my coverage?
How Routing Became a Coverage Question
One of the things I have always counseled my clients on — long before any of this — is that where you’re going and how you get there are two different conversations. Most travelers focus entirely on the destination. The routing is an afterthought.
The closure of Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi has made routing visible in a way it rarely is. Carriers have been rerouting passengers through Istanbul, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, and other alternatives. Some of those changes are seamless. Others have added hours, changed connection logistics, and created situations that travelers’ original policies didn’t contemplate — different carriers, different airports, different timing.
If your journey to or from Africa, Asia, or Australia has historically connected through a Gulf hub, it is worth knowing whether that routing has changed, and whether any changes are protected under your current policy. That is a much easier conversation to have now than at the airport.
Cancel For Any Reason Coverage (Known as CFAR)
The one insurance tool that gives you genuine flexibility — regardless of the reason, regardless of what is happening in the world — is CFAR: Cancel For Any Reason coverage.
CFAR allows you to cancel a trip for any reason and recover 50 to 75 percent of your prepaid, non-refundable costs. The tradeoffs are timing and premium: it must typically be purchased within 14 to 21 days of your initial trip deposit, and it adds roughly 40 to 60 percent to the cost of a standard policy.
This is the coverage I encourage clients to consider from the very beginning of the booking process — not after the world has changed and the window has closed. In an environment where the unexpected has become routine, the cost of that flexibility is usually worth it.
A Note on Airfares and Timing
One practical dimension of this conflict that deserves attention: with jet fuel up more than 60 percent since late February, airlines are beginning to pass those costs on to travelers through higher fares and surcharges. This is the same pattern the industry followed after the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022. How sustained the increase is depends on how long the Strait of Hormuz disruption persists, which as of today remains genuinely uncertain.
What is certain is that waiting to book while hoping the situation resolves is a choice with a cost attached to it. For clients who are in the planning phase for spring or summer journeys, that is a calculation worth making consciously rather than by default.
What This Moment Is Really Asking
Every few years, something happens in the world that makes the fine print matter. COVID was one. The Russia-Ukraine airspace closure was another. The current conflict is the latest, and it will not be the last.
What I have learned from each of these moments is that the travelers who navigate them best are not the ones who predicted them — nobody does that reliably — but the ones who built their journeys with the right protections in place from the start. The right policy. The right routing awareness. An advisor who knows every element of their booking and can act quickly when conditions change.
Travel insurance, properly understood, is not a product you buy and file away. It is part of how a journey is designed — chosen deliberately, read carefully, and matched to the specific realities of where you’re going and how you’re getting there.
This is exactly the kind of moment where having someone who knows your booking — the routing, the policy, the operator — is worth more than any amount of independent research. I’m here for that conversation.