All the signs are that Brexit will now be moved from 29th March to 12th April, at the earliest, right in the middle of the school Easter holidays.
MP’s have now voted to seize control of Commons business, and will now vote on the Brexit alternatives. There will be around 6 alternatives, expected to range from cancelling Brexit completely through to leaving the EU without a deal, and other options in between. It is expected that this process will continue well into next week So, if you have your Easter holiday booked in the EU what precautions can you take? First thing is to ensure that you have a travel insurance policy that will cover you for some of the uncertainties of what could happen with Brexit. For example, you may need to cancel your holiday, or your travel is severely delayed either travelling out on holiday or returning home.
It is important to note that in the majority, travel insurance policies will only cover cancellation for specific causes, normally:
– Death, injury or illness of you or a travelling companion
– Death, injury or illness of a close relative not travelling with you
– You or a travelling companion are called for Jury Service
– You or a travelling companion are made redundant.
As you can see, this is quite limiting and would not give any protection around the uncertainties of Brexit. However, there are some travel insurance policies which will offer cover for ‘cancellation for any reason which you could not have been expected to foresee or avoid’ or ‘for any reason beyond your reasonable control’, which is the cover we recommend everyone should look for, particularly if you are worried about what could happen with Brexit.
You may also be concerned about missed departures or travel delays due to Brexit issues. Again, cover for this can be very limited on some policies, so always check policy wording carefully. For example, most policies will not cover missed departure due to queues at check-in or security, something that could happen with new passport checks post Brexit. However, there are a few policies that do cover those situations, so it is worth looking around if this cover is important to you.
Finally, ensure that your passport is valid, the advice at the moment for holidaymakers travelling to Europe post Brexit, is to ensure they have at least six months left on their passport, you can check this on the passport service website.
