TRAVEL: Injured? Sick? Volcano? Travel insurance can help

By Eileen AJ Connelly, AP Personal Finance Writer

NEW YORK — The cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland that has shut down airports all over Europe is just the latest event to disrupt travel.

Hurricanes and other natural disasters, along with political unrest and personal problems, ruin vacation and business travel plans all the time.

One way to hedge against such events is travel insurance. For a relatively small fee — typically 4 to 8% of the cost of the trip — you can buy protection for your trip.

Typical policies cover costs for delays, like extra hotel stays or the price involved in changing plans; the nonrefundable costs for interrupted or canceled trips; lost or stolen luggage; medical emergencies and even medical evacuation. Older travelers and those who take more expensive vacations can expect to pay the higher prices.

But you can no longer get coverage for next week's planned trip to Europe.

The travel insurance industry has designated the eruption of the volcano beneath an Icelandic glacier as a "known event," explained Jill Rosenberg, manager of group and executive travel for AAA New York. That means you won't be able to buy coverage for trips that may be canceled or otherwise impacted by the volcano.

"It's sort of like buying homeowner's insurance while your house is on fire," said Jim Grace, president of Insuremytrip.com, which sells policies from 24 companies online.

Similar rules apply to a hurricane once it has a name, said Carol Mueller, a spokeswoman for the insurer Travel Guard.

Mueller said about 75% of claims in the industry are related to canceling trips, usually because of illness for the traveler or a family member.

Here's some tips for buying travel insurance:

• Purchase your policy within seven to 14 days of booking your trip to get the most comprehensive coverage.

• Ask questions to make sure you're getting the coverage you need. Grace said about 90% of the companies that sell policies through his website are covering volcano-related cancellations.

• Adventure travel and high-risk activities may require extra insurance on top of the standard policy.

• Extra protection is available through policies with "cancel for any reason" riders, which are more expensive. Some of these policies may not reimburse the full cost of a trip, so make sure you know how much coverage you're buying.

• Theft or damage of personal property is usually covered, but there are typically price limits. Homeowner's or renter's insurance may provide backup for expensive items like electronics or jewelry, but check before you leave home.

• Many booking websites offer travel insurance at the time you make a reservation, but you can also buy it separately through an aggregator like insuremytrip.com or directly from company sites. Prices vary, so it makes sense to shop around.

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EAST ASIA: For the world's least delayed airports, look to Japan and South Korea but not China

01.22.10, 8:00 PM ET

Air Traffic
The World's Most Delayed Airports

Brian Wingfield and Deborah Weinstein

WASHINGTON - Traveling to India and China? Pack your patience. Airports in those countries top our third annual list of The World's Most Delayed Airports.

Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport takes the prize for the airport with the least timely arrivals with just 45% of its scheduled passenger flights arriving on time. Beijing Capital International Airport has the worst departure record with just 38% of commercial passenger flights leaving as scheduled. To gather our information, we relied on FlightStats, a service that tracks historical and real-time flight information around the globe.

Officials from Delhi's and Beijing's airports could not be reached for comment, but their status should come as no surprise. Both were at or near the top of our most-delayed list last year.

Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport and Istanbul Ataturk International Airport round out the top three worst airports for timely arrivals. For departures, Dubai International Airport and Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport follow Beijing.

In Pictures: The World's Most Delayed Airports

A flight is considered "on time" if it arrives or departs less than 15 minutes after its scheduled take-off or landing time. In many cases delays can be attributed to growing pains at a particular airport. For example: Delhi's airport expects to open a new terminal later in 2010; Mumbai's airport plans a massive expansion by 2015; and Cairo International (fourth worst for departures at 54.7%) was forced to close one of its two runways in 2009 to accommodate construction for a third runway.

An airport official from Sheremetyevo International says that in most cases, delayed departures there are simply caused by flights arriving late from other airports. And Mark Davison, a spokesman for Great Britain's Stansted Airport (eighth worst for arrivals at 66.7%), which serves many budget carriers, says low-cost airlines frequently plan for short turnaround times on the ground.

"This can mean there is a higher likelihood of an aircraft possibly running late," he says in an e-mail.

And in many busy airports, air traffic also plays a role. "We've got three of the busiest airports in the country within a few miles of each other," explains Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs JFK, LaGuardia and Newark International Airport. The latter two of these appear on our list--Newark is No. 6 for worst arrivals, LaGuardia No. 10.

Not surprisingly, officials from some airports don't agree with our rankings or our source, FlightStats. For example, a spokesman for the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (sixth worst for departures) says the U.S. Transportation Department is the U.S. authority for airport on-time arrivals and departures. In the U.K., it's the Civil Aviation Authority, argues Stansted's Davison. (Both agencies give those airports higher marks than we do.) Oliver Weiss, Cairo International Airport's chief operating officer, says FlightStats doesn't consider the full number of arrivals and departures at the airport.

But we use FlightStats information for several reasons. First, it gathers flight information from airports, airlines, flight reservation systems and other sources around the world. The Transportation Department, for example, publishes data on 31 major U.S. airports and includes only the 19 largest domestic carriers, such as Delta, Continental and American Airlines.

Second, definitions of what counts in on-time performance can vary by country. (Should freight flights count? What about chartered flights, corporate jets or air taxis?) For a global apples-to-apples comparison, FlightStats provided us with information on published, scheduled passenger flights--in other words, the flights that matter most to commercial travelers. We considered flights at the world's 200 busiest airports by passenger volume, according to Airports Council International's 2009 World Traffic Report.

There is one caveat: No single entity gathers comprehensive on-time information for all airlines at each of the world's airports. Therefore, we included only airports about which FlightStats has the most detailed information. That means some airports, particularly large hubs in South America, weren't considered for our list.

For the world's least delayed airports, look to Japan and South Korea. Flights at Osaka's Itami Airport arrived and departed on time 94% of the time in 2009, according to FlightStats. At Seoul's Gimpo International Airport, 91% of passenger flights arrived on time, and 93% departed as scheduled.

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