Travel agents urge vacationers to purchase insurance as forecast calls for ferocious hurricane season

As Hurricane Beryl churns through the Caribbean, levelling coastal communities, Global Affairs Canada has issued a travel advisory for areas already devastated – and those in the path of the storm.

Forming quickly in the Atlantic, Beryl became a category five storm earlier in the season than any hurricane ever recorded.

The deadly storm has claimed at least six lives—and devastated parts of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Downgraded slightly to a category four storm, on Wednesday Beryl began to batter southern Jamaica with winds approaching 225 kilometres per hour.

On Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where the storm is expected to make landfall later in the week, merchants in beach towns like Cancun and Playa del Carmen are boarding up their businesses.

It could be a harbinger of what is to come as forecasters predict an extremely active and dangerous tropical storm season.

"We have very warm waters, in some cases record-setting warm temperatures, as far as those surface waters go,” said CTV Atlantic meteorologist Kalin Mitchell. “And that is fuel for these type of storms. And we also have a very favourable wind environment being created."

Canadians planning to take off to the tropics between now and the end of November don’t necessarily need to cancel their plans just yet – but they might want to consider travel insurance.

"Look for policies that cover trip cancellations, as well as interruptions if you need to get home sooner than planned,” said Alana Udovicic, BCAA’s consumer marketing manager.

She said travellers should buy their insurance at the time of booking because once a destination is already in the path of a storm it may be unavailable.

"As soon it becomes known, it's in the forecast, it's in the news, as this was before the advisory was issued, it's at that point that most insurers won't provide coverage for cancellation,” Udovicic said.

Forecasters predict up to 13 Atlantic hurricanes could form this year – with as many as seven developing into dangerous category three or stronger storms.