But isn't that dependent on the AU govt? If the AU govt lower the travel alert for countries within the AU travel bubble, then the insurance should be good as long as there's no exclusion for pandemic?
There's a couple of issues at play...
AU govt lower the travel alert for countries within the AU travel bubble
Yes, this is the first step. If you are talking about point-to-point travel between here and NZ say, then a market for travel insurance will likely emerge relatively quickly.
But it will get very complicated very quickly if you start talking about countries that bilaterally open to us that also bilaterally open to others that we are not open to. For example, if hypothetically Australia decides that it's happy to bilaterally open to Singapore but not Malaysia, but Singapore and Malaysia open borders to each other then that's very quickly going to complicated for insurers offering cover to Australians travelling to Singapore. In insurance, "complicated" = "expensive premium".
as long as there's no exclusion for pandemic
Pretty much every insurance policy ever has excluded pandemic. Having said that, travel insurers have an incentive to get you back buying their products so they will probably look to find solutions to this. But realistically there are only two solutions:
1. You buy cover that excludes CV19-related claims; or
2. You pay an additional premium that covers you for CV-19 claims.
Medical expenses can get very large, very quickly with something likely CV19 and, depending on the destination there may be a reasonably high claim frequency too, but bear in mind that it's not just medical expenses that drive travel insurance claims. In fact, if there's a second or third wave of the disease, either here or overseas, then air routes and borders will likely slam shut again, probably much faster than they did in the first wave. The risk of a second or third wave occurring
somewhere in the world is pretty high. It doesn't even have to be at your destination to impact you if you're not travelling point-to-point. So a premium that covers you for both medical and travel interruption is going to be very expensive.
It's kind of akin to insuring your home if you live on a flood plain. You might be able to buy insurance that doesn't include flood cover for $1,000 a year, but if you live on a flood plain then you want flood cover. You may be able to buy insurance that includes flood cover for $20k a year, but that's then a question of affordability.
