Industrial action at Australian airports, as reported by Comparetravelinsurance.com.au, has put a persistent travel insurance problem back on the table: policyholders often discover what their policy excludes at the moment they need to claim.
According to the comparison site, security and ground service workers walked off the job at airports in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. Around 400 Sydney Airport security workers participated in a two-hour strike, with further stoppages planned. Hundreds of Qantas ground service employees also stopped work for 24 hours. Qantas said contingency plans were in place and did not expect significant disruption to passenger services.
For brokers distributing travel products, the disruption raises a question that surfaces whenever a major travel event makes headlines: what happens when a client calls after the strike is already public knowledge?
The known event exclusion is the most consequential clause in travel insurance during a disruption – and the most consistently misunderstood.
Natalie Smith, spokesperson for Comparetravelinsurance.com.au, said the date a policy is purchased – not the nature or scale of the disruption – typically determines whether a claim will be paid.
“If you wait until after a strike or major travel event has been announced, you would likely not be covered for cancellations, delays, or other losses linked to that known event. Travel insurance is designed to protect you against unexpected events – not events that have already happened or are already known,” Smith said.
The advice risk for brokers is direct. A client who purchases or upgrades cover after a strike is publicly known is unlikely to receive payment for losses arising from that event. Failing to flag that limitation clearly sits inside the disclosure obligations brokers carry under their Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) and the Insurance Brokers Code of Practice.
Smith said the same timing logic applies across all categories of strike-related loss: “It’s essential to purchase travel insurance as soon as you start making payments towards your trip.”
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Where a policy is in place before a disruption becomes publicly known, comprehensive travel products can respond to additional transport, accommodation, and meal expenses, missed connections, and some prepaid bookings. The key word is “can.”
“Some comprehensive policies can provide cover for cancellations, delays, or additional expenses resulting from strikes or industrial action. But there are conditions and exclusions, so travellers should check the policy wording carefully rather than assuming they’ll automatically be covered,” Smith said.
Travel delay benefits differ across products in both trigger threshold and maximum payout. For a client delayed for an extended period, those limits matter.
On prepaid bookings, Smith said some policies include cancellation or lost-expense provisions where a covered disruption prevents a client from reaching a prepaid tour, hotel, or event. “This can be particularly important for travellers with expensive tours, accommodation, or other bookings that can’t be refunded,” she said.
Strike cover is not uniform across product tiers. Some comprehensive policies include it as standard; some entry-level products exclude it entirely. That distinction rarely appears in product summaries – it sits in the policy wording.
In February 2025, the NSW Supreme Court convicted Allianz Australia Insurance and AWP Australia, fining them a combined $16.8 million. The court found both companies had published information on Allianz’s travel insurance web pages between 2016 and 2018 that misrepresented the level of coverage – advertising maximum benefits while failing to disclose the sub-limits, conditions, and exclusions that reduced them.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said it “was concerned that thousands of customers were exposed to the risk that they might obtain insurance that they believed offered far more cover than it did.”
The conduct that attracted criminal charges was not the exclusions themselves. It was the failure to disclose them. That distinction is directly relevant to how brokers present and explain travel products to retail clients.
The disclosure issue sits alongside a documented claims handling problem across the broader general insurance sector.
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) received 34,231 general insurance complaints in 2024-25, a 17% increase on the prior year, according to AFCA’s annual review. Travel insurance has been a consistent contributor to those volumes.
The General Insurance Code Governance Committee (GICGC) recorded 70,325 code breaches across the industry in 2024-25 – a 20.5% rise. Of those, 41,140 (59%) related to claims handling and delays. The obligation to update policyholders on claim progress every 20 business days was breached 18,350 times, a 67% increase on the prior year.
Together, the two datasets describe a market where exclusion disputes reach AFCA – and where claims handling failures generate friction well before a dispute gets that far.
A June 2025 survey commissioned by the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) found 14% of Australian travellers had no cover on their most recent overseas trip. Among under-30s, the uninsured rate was 23%.
Of those who went without cover, 65% said they had consciously chosen not to buy it – 31% because they considered their destination safe, and 27% because they viewed insurance as poor value. Among travellers aged 18 to 25, one in 10 said they could not afford it.
Clients making coverage decisions based on destination safety rather than event risk are more likely to hold inadequate policies – or none at all – when disruption occurs.
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Smith said price-based product selection leaves gaps that tend to appear at claim time. “Look carefully at cancellation, travel delay, missed connection, and additional expense benefits and check how the policy treats strikes and industrial action. Cheaper policies may have lower benefit limits or different exclusions, so it’s important to compare the actual cover rather than assuming all travel insurance policies work in the same way,” she said.
Cover should be in place from the first trip payment – not at departure, and not after a disruption is already public. “You want your policy in place before something unexpected happens, not once the disruption is already in the news,” Smith said.
