- Travel Insurance and Acts of War: Most policies exclude coverage for war-related incidents like conflict, invasions, or civil war, but the details depend on how "war" is defined and specific policy language.
- Impact of Travel Advisories: Claims are more likely to be approved if a government issues a Level 3 or 4 travel advisory after your policy is purchased, making timing important for coverage.
- Why Consider 'Cancel for Any Reason' (CFAR) Policies: CFAR policies let you cancel for any reason and get partial refunds, avoiding complex war and violence exclusions, but require early purchase and specific conditions.
- Emergency Evacuation Coverage: This separate benefit helps you get out of dangerous areas, but war exclusions can sometimes also apply here, so it’s important to read the policy carefully.
- File Claims and Know Your Coverage Gaps: In events like Puerto Vallarta violence or Middle East strikes, file claims regardless of uncertainty, and document everything to strengthen your case, noting that standard policies may not cover all losses.
Two events in the past week put the same uncomfortable question in front of thousands of travelers at once. On February 22, the Mexican military killed cartel leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, triggering retaliatory violence that shut down Puerto Vallarta International Airport and stranded tourists across Jalisco state. On February 28, the United States and Israel launched coordinated military strikes on Iran, forcing eight countries to close their airspace and canceling hundreds of flights through Dubai, Doha, Tel Aviv, and beyond.
Both events triggered airline cancellations, government shelter-in-place orders, and State Department advisories. Both left travelers scrambling for information. And both landed in a part of the travel insurance policy that most people have never read: the war exclusion clause.
The short answer to whether travel insurance covers acts of war is: usually not, but the situation is more complicated than a flat no. What actually gets paid out depends on how the insurer defines “war,” whether your government issued a formal travel advisory, the type of coverage you’re claiming, and, in some cases, how the insurer chooses to classify a particular event after the fact.
The War Exclusion: What It Says and What It Doesn’t
Most standard travel insurance policies contain a war exclusion that voids coverage for losses caused by war, invasion, acts of foreign enemies, hostilities, civil war, rebellion, revolution, insurrection, or military power. The exact language varies by insurer and policy, but the intent is consistent: if a shooting war causes your trip to fall apart, the insurance company generally does not have to pay.
The Iran airspace closure is the cleaner case. U.S. and Israeli military forces carried out strikes on a sovereign nation. Multiple governments closed their airspace in response. That is, by almost any reasonable reading, a war-adjacent event, and policies with standard war exclusions will likely deny claims filed solely on the basis of the strikes themselves. Travelers who had flights canceled through the Gulf or connecting through Dubai are unlikely to receive trip cancellation reimbursement from a standard policy unless they purchased specific add-on coverage.
The Puerto Vallarta situation is murkier. The violence was perpetrated by a criminal organization, not a foreign military or government. Cartel attacks, road blockades, and airport closures are not traditional acts of war, and some insurers will treat them differently. The critical distinction in most policies is not whether the event was violent, but whether it qualifies as a government-declared war or civil war. Cartel violence in a tourist zone often falls into a different category entirely.
Where Travel Advisories Change the Math
The most reliable path to a paid claim in either scenario is not the war exclusion debate. It is the travel advisory trigger.
Many travel insurance policies include a provision that allows cancellation reimbursement when the U.S. State Department issues a Level 3 (Reconsider Travel) or Level 4 (Do Not Travel) advisory for a destination after your policy is purchased. For Puerto Vallarta, the State Department issued a shelter-in-place order for U.S. citizens on February 22 and has maintained a Level 3 advisory for Jalisco state. For Iran, the Level 4 advisory has been in place for years and was reissued following the strikes. If your policy includes a travel advisory provision, that is the coverage pathway to pursue, not the war exclusion clause.
The timing of your purchase matters enormously here. Most policies require that the advisory be issued after you buy the policy and after you book the trip. Someone who bought a policy for a Puerto Vallarta vacation in December, before El Mencho’s killing, and whose policy includes a travel advisory cancellation provision, has a reasonable claim. Someone who bought a policy after the airport closed does not. Insurers treat the moment an event becomes public knowledge as the point at which it is no longer an “unforeseen” circumstance, which is a required condition for most trip cancellation claims.
“Cancel for Any Reason” Coverage: The Clean Solution
The clearest way to avoid the war exclusion debate entirely is a Cancel for Any Reason policy, commonly abbreviated as CFAR. These policies, typically available as an upgrade to a standard plan, allow you to cancel for any reason whatsoever and receive a partial reimbursement, usually 50% to 75% of your prepaid, nonrefundable trip costs. They do not require a specific trigger. They do not care whether the event qualifies as war, civil unrest, or something in between.
CFAR coverage comes with its own requirements. It generally must be purchased within 14 to 21 days of your initial trip deposit, you must insure 100% of your prepaid nonrefundable costs, and you must cancel at least 48 hours before departure. If you were already in Puerto Vallarta when the violence broke out and needed emergency evacuation, CFAR is not the right tool anyway. For that, you need trip interruption coverage and, potentially, emergency evacuation coverage, which is a separate benefit with its own exclusion set.
Emergency Evacuation: A Different Animal
Travelers stranded in Puerto Vallarta during the cartel violence faced a practical problem beyond insurance: there were no flights out, no rideshare services, and the roads to the airport were blocked with burning vehicles. Several travelers told reporters they had no way to leave even after the airport reopened, because access routes remained impassable.
Emergency evacuation coverage, which is distinct from trip cancellation or interruption, pays for transportation to get you to safety or to medical care. Better policies also include security evacuation, sometimes called political evacuation, which specifically covers extraction from locations where civil unrest, riots, or political violence make it dangerous to remain. This is the benefit that matters most when the event is unfolding,a nd you are physically in the affected area.
The war exclusion can apply to emergency evacuation coverage, too. Some policies explicitly carve out evacuation caused by war. Others maintain the evacuation benefit even when the war exclusion voids the trip cancellation. Reading your policy’s evacuation section separately from the cancellation section is not optional if you travel to regions with elevated political or security risk.
What the Puerto Vallarta and Iran Events Tell Us About Policy Gaps
Both events exposed the same coverage gap in similar ways. Travelers with standard policies and no CFAR upgrade, no advisory-triggered cancellation provision, and no security evacuation benefit found themselves relying entirely on airline waivers, which are the carrier’s discretionary goodwill and not a contractual guarantee. American, Delta, United, Air Canada, and Southwest all issued change-fee waivers for Puerto Vallarta routes. Emirates, Lufthansa, and Qatar Airways offered refunds and rebooking for Gulf routes following the Iran strikes.
Airline waivers get you a credit or a rerouted ticket. They do not cover the hotel nights you paid for that you cannot use, the nonrefundable resort deposit, the prepaid tours, or the vacation rental that will not refund you because the cancellation was not their fault. Those losses are what travel insurance is supposed to cover, and those are exactly the losses that fall into the gray zone when the policy’s war exclusion is in play.
The lesson is not that travel insurance is useless for political or security events. It is the standard policy, which most people buy based on price, that was not designed with these scenarios as the primary use case. Comparing the best travel insurance plans with attention to how they define “war,” whether they include advisory-triggered cancellation, and whether security evacuation is a named benefit will surface meaningful differences between policies that look similar on price.
What to Do If You Have a Claim From Either Event
If your travel was disrupted by the Puerto Vallarta shutdown or the Middle East airspace closures, file a claim regardless of uncertainty about whether the war exclusion applies. Let the insurer make the determination. Some insurers will pay trip interruption or cancellation claims on cartel-violence events without invoking the war exclusion, because they do not classify criminal organizations the same way they classify foreign military forces. You will not know until you file.
Document everything before you call your insurer. Screenshot the State Department advisory with its date and time. Save your airline’s cancellation confirmation. Save receipts for any lodging, meals, or alternative transport you paid for during the disruption. Get written confirmation from the airline that the cancellation was due to the specific event, not weather or a mechanical issue. The more clearly you can tie each expense to the specific triggering event, the stronger your claim.
Understanding what travel insurance costs relative to the total trip value makes the decision easier for future trips. A policy that includes CFAR, advisory-triggered cancellation, and security evacuation will cost more than a bare-bones plan. For travel to Mexico, the Middle East, or any destination with an active State Department advisory, the premium difference is often worth the coverage difference.
The Bottom Line
Travel insurance does not reliably cover acts of war, and the definition of “act of war” is broader in most policies than most travelers assume. But the war exclusion is not the only relevant clause, and it is not always the deciding factor. Travel advisory provisions, CFAR upgrades, and security evacuation benefits each operate on different triggers and different exclusion sets. The policy that pays out in a Puerto Vallarta cartel shutdown or a Middle East airspace closure is the one that was designed to include these scenarios, not the one that happened to be cheapest at checkout.
Frequently asked questions
Questions about whether political attacks are covered under travel insurance policies.
Covers the standard exclusion, the advisory trigger exception, and CFAR as the clean workaround.
Explains why the classification varies and why filing anyway is always the right move.
Walks through how CFAR sidesteps the exclusion entirely, plus the purchase window and 48-hour cancellation conditions.
Distinguishes security/political evacuation from standard medical evacuation, and flags that the war exclusion can apply to evacuation benefits separately.
The “unforeseen event” cutoff explained, with both events named as concrete examples of when the window closes.
