Travel insurance and executive orders

Question

Suppose I have tickets, hotel reservations, and a visa to visit the United States.
Suppose I've previously been to Iran for a conference, and/or have an Iraqi passport.

Here's the risk I'm concerned about: Suppose that between the time I pay for everything and the time I enter the United States, its President issues an Executive Order declaring that I will not be allowed in (or that as a result of new policy, I will be detained for long enough to miss a connection), based on my membership in some set (examples above). That happened to a lot of people earlier this year. Although a court has temporarily blocked that claiming it seems like it might be based on religious discrimination, the President is fighting to restore travel bans and could issue new, broader orders at any time [or the previous ones could be restored to immediate action by a court victory].

Is this the kind of thing that standard travel insurance will cover? I'm talking about the kind you get in the checkout process when buying the airplane tickets etc. on popular websites, but if those plans don't cover it and ones purchased separately do, that would be useful to know as well.

I'm not looking for recommendations asserting that one particular policy is the best or worst, and there are other factors that would come into play for recommendations but which are out of scope for this question about how the coverage generally works with respect to this one specific risk.

If this site has travelers who bought insurance and got stuck earlier this year (either stuck in transit or had to stay home), I'd especially like to hear your experiences on this.

Answer 1

One of the risks commonly excluded from travel insurance is "government actions",^1.2meaning detentions, confiscations or delays due to governments. An action to prevent visits from valid visa holders would almost certainly fall under this category. Up until recently this has normally applied to authoritarian or unstable governments who arbitrarily decide to detain or exclude any or all visitors.

On the upside, the most recent proposals from the US have only prevented those without valid visas from acquiring them. Visitors with valid visas would be admitted under those proposal, and the proposals themselves are subject to legal dispute.

You should also be aware that US Customs and Border Protection has wide discretion to refuse entry at the border, even with a valid visa - and there is little recourse. This too would likely count as government action and would not be covered by insurance.