E&O insurance for travel agents

What E&O actually pays for

Errors and omissions coverage responds when a client says your professional work caused them a financial loss. The claim is not that someone got hurt or that property was damaged — that is general liability. The claim is that you got something wrong, or failed to do something you should have done, and it cost them money.

For a travel agent, that usually means booking errors. The return flight lands a day after the cruise departs. The passport-name mismatch is caught at the gate. The client was never told the resort would be under construction, or that their travel insurance had to be purchased within fourteen days of the initial deposit to cover a pre-existing condition.

The part agents underestimate is defense cost. A claim that goes nowhere still gets answered by a lawyer, and answering it out of pocket can cost more than the trip that started the argument. E&O pays that defense whether or not the allegation turns out to have merit.

Your host agency's policy may not follow you

This is the single most common gap we see. A host agency carries E&O because the host has its own exposure — and whether that policy extends to you as an independent contractor, at what limit, and for which activities, is a question answered by the contract you signed, not by assumption.

Even where coverage does extend, it is usually shared. A limit shared across every agent under the host is a limit that can be exhausted by someone else's claim before yours is heard. And coverage that runs through the host ends when your relationship with the host ends — including for bookings you made while you were there, if the policy is written on a claims-made basis.

Reading your host agreement is worth an afternoon. Look for whether you are a named insured or merely an additional insured, whether the limit is shared or per-agent, and what happens to coverage for past bookings when you leave.

Claims-made, and why the date matters

Most professional liability, E&O included, is written claims-made. Coverage responds to claims reported during the policy period, not to work performed during it. Two dates matter as a result: the retroactive date, which is how far back your prior work is covered, and what happens at the end.

If you let a claims-made policy lapse, the coverage for everything you booked under it goes with it. That is what an extended reporting period — a tail — is for. When you switch carriers, the new policy should pick up your prior retroactive date rather than starting fresh, or you leave a gap behind you.