Can I purchase travel insurance now to cover my trip?

​This is a question that has come up as calls come into my office.  You can always purchase travel insurance to cover your vacation investment after you have made deposits. Still, some restrictions come into play when you decide after the fact to protect yourself.  Many travel insurance policies have a preexisting conditions clause in them that are defined within the policy as to what constitutes a preexisting condition.  When travel insurance is purchased with the initial deposit of a trip, many travel insurance policies include a waiver so you will be covered for losses due to a preexisting medical condition, but the most important restriction is the policy must be purchased within 14 days of the first trip payment to qualify for this waiver.  So if you booked your trip a few months ago and now want to buy insurance, no preexisting conditions will be covered, and all of the other general exclusions will still be excluded.  

​​​Due to the current events, many travel insurance companies are no longer allowing the purchase of a Cancel for Any Reason Travel Insurance plan after 14-21 days after the first trip payment, so there a traveler will not be able to purchase this type of coverage for a trip previously paid. 

If a client previously purchased travel protection to cover their trip but now wants to upgrade to cancel for any reason policy, this may be done if the following condition applies. The change would have to be made before the final payment is made on the trip.  If someone were to make this change on the travel insurance policy, the previous policy is canceled, which would void the preexisting condition waiver since the new policy was purchased after the deposit window for the preexisting conditions to be waived. 
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So as you can see, there are some options, but you need to know all of the consequences of any change that you make.  With the help of a travel advisor, you can identify many of these scenarios to make an informed decision.