London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

UK concert and festival ticket buyers warned insurance may not cover Covid

UK concert and festival ticket buyers warned insurance may not cover Covid

Many people unaware event organisers are obliged to compensate in cases such as a national lockdown
Concert and festival ticket buyers have been warned to check the small print before buying insurance to cover cancellations, after a survey found many do not know what cover they are paying for.

Research by Which? found ticket buyers were now more likely to pay for insurance than before the Covid-19 pandemic, but that many did not know what was covered, or that event organisers were in some cases obliged to compensate them as a matter of course.

The insurance is an optional extra sold by websites alongside tickets to events. At Ticketmaster, it costs £4.73 to cover each ticket to events such as Elton John on tour next year, or this month’s Latitude festival. At Eventim, covering a £60 ticket to the Killers at the Emirates stadium costs £3.90.

The consumer group surveyed 2,000 people and found two-fifths thought insurance would cover them if a national lockdown meant the event could not go ahead as planned, while a third thought it would pay out if the event could not go ahead due to a local lockdown.

A quarter thought they would be covered if they were told to self-isolate by the NHS test-and-trace app.

However, in all of these cases ticket holders should be refunded regardless of whether they bought insurance.

For occasions where government advice is in place telling people not to travel outside their local area, and that means they cannot attend an event, the rules are less clear and customers may not automatically be entitled to a refund.

While insurance might seem to be the answer, when Which? checked the terms and conditions of policies being sold on ticket sites, it found not all policies offered a payout.

The group looked at five insurers used by some of the UK’s biggest ticket sales websites. It found XCover used by AXS was the most comprehensive.

In a situation where one person tests positive for Covid and everyone else wants to cancel as a result, Booking Protect, used by Festicket, and Great Lakes Insurance, used by Eventim, would not cover the loss.

Under the “protect my ticket purchase option”, Eventim’s website states that it does not cover any Covid-related claims.

TicketPlan, used by Ticketmaster and See Tickets among others, offered cover in all of the scenarios Which? looked at.

Adam French, the Which? consumer rights expert, said: “Consumers should check the terms and conditions carefully to see if it’s worth buying insurance and should remember that if an event is cancelled or postponed due to lockdown rules, primary ticket sellers have to offer a refund.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×