Best and worst delayed departure cover

There are few things more frustrating than being held up on the way to your holiday. The delayed departure cover offered by many travel insurance policies can never fully compensate you for spending time in the departure lounge when you could be on the beach, but making a claim on your travel insurance may at least cover the cost of food and drink while you're waiting to take off or set sail.

However, according to research by leading insurance comparison website Gocompare.com, the delayed departure and holiday abandonment cover offered by travel insurers can vary greatly and some are more generous, and more useful, than others.

For example, although AIG Direct's Platinum cover will allow you to claim a maximum of £500 per insured person for a delayed departure, you would have to be delayed for 25 days in order to claim the maximum allowable. That's slightly better than AIG Direct's Silver cover though, which has no departure delay cover at all.

More useful cover is offered by American Express, which allows you to claim £20 per insured person once you've been delayed for just six hours and then an additional £20 for each further 12 hour delay, up to a maximum of £200 per person. It would take a delay of 4.75 days to claim the maximum £200 allowable from American Express. Virgin travel insurance pays out £25 after an 8 hour delay and another £25 for each subsequent 8 hour period, up to a maximum of £100. Virgin travel insurance provides a payout of £75 per insured person for a delay of just over 24 hours, the best payout for this length of delay of all the insurance companies looked at in this research.

Hayley Parsons, chief executive of Gocompare.com, commented: "It's unlikely many holiday makers would wait for more than 2 or 3 days before abandoning their holiday so policies offering larger payments more quickly are more useful than those with simply the highest maximum cover. I can't imagine any circumstances where you'd delay your holiday for 25 days. 25 hours hanging around a departure lounge with bored children would be enough to cause most people to abandon their holiday, especially if their travel insurance gave them the option to give up and go home."

Many travel insurance policies offer some cover for abandoning your holiday due to excessive delay caused by industrial action, adverse weather or mechanical breakdown of public transport, including ferries and aircraft, but it's always worth checking the wording of your policy. The AIG Direct Silver and Endsleigh Essential policies don't cover you for a delayed departure or abandoning your holiday so if you're stuck at an airport or ferry terminal with either of those policies you'll have no choice but to sit out the delays or wave goodbye to what you've spent on your holiday.

Fortunately, most policies have some provision to allow you to abandon your holiday after a 24 hour delay to your departure. However the AA, Direct Line and Endsleigh's Comprehensive cover are even more flexible as they will allow you to abandon your holiday after a 12 hour delay. These policies will let you claim any unrecoverable holiday costs up to £5000 per insured person with an excess of £60 per person for the AA, £50 per person for Endsleigh and £40 per person for Direct Line. This cover would allow you to rearrange your holiday for a future date losing just your excess.

Hayley Parsons had this advice for holidaymakers: "Having your holiday delayed is no fun at all, but if you are held up on your outward or return journey it's worth checking your travel insurance policy to see if you can make a claim when you get home. If you're delayed for more than 24 hours, or 12 hours with some insurers, and your policy includes abandonment cover, you could consider giving up on your holiday before it starts and rearranging it for a future date. In all cases check the terms of your insurance carefully and get official confirmation of the length of the delay and the reason for it from your holiday company or airline as your insurers will need to see proof when you submit your claim."