travel insurance against changing covid conditions

Question

Is there travel insurance, that would cover travel expenses in case that a change in covid regulations prevent me from taking a booked trip. Example: I book a trip to New Zealand in Feb 2023. New Zealand is open right now, but it's possible that Covid flares up and New Zealand shuts down again.

For hotels and cars booking with "free cancellation" is a reasonable option. That's not the case for flights, though.

Things I've looked at so far

1. Anything labelled "Covid" insurance only seems to cover the cases where I get Covid (either before or during the trip)
2. Cancel for Any Reason: these are unreasonably expensive (ca. 10% of trip cost) and only cover 75% of the expenses
3. Refundable tickets: insanely expensive, more than four times the price of a regular ticket.
4. Play "cancellation chicken". Hope that the airline cancels the flight before the departure date (which entitles me to a full refund).

Option 2 and 3 provide much more coverage than I actually need which makes them unnecessarily expensive.

Are there travel insurances that provide coverage specifically against changing covid rules?

Answer 1

I don't know where you are based, but in the UK the Consumer's Association did a review of travel insurance earlier this year (Jan) and found 5 which offered

cover you for cancellation if you can't travel due to changes in FCDO advice or because of a lockdown."

(where FCDO is the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office).

These were listed as "Barclays, Churchill, Direct Line, HSBC and Nationwide"

The details of their report are behind a paywall, but if I look at the Churchill website their Covid Travel Insurance page says

From the 5th October 2021, our policies will provide the following cover for COVID-19 (including any variants) and other pandemics for all trips booked but you are yet to take and any future trips you book:

Cancelling a trip if: ... The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO, previously referred to as FCO) advise against all travel to your destination or all but essential travel to your destination within 28 days of departure, as long as the advice wasn’t in place when you booked your trip or purchased your policy (whichever was later).