The compatibility is there because most hardware wallets follow the BIP39 implementation. Electrum is somewhat different because it uses a unique seed creation process based on version numbers and not checksums like in BIP39, but it still accepts and supports BIP39 seeds with a minor settings change.

If your hardware wallet uses standard derivation paths (which popular brands do) and you have the correct recovery phrase + the passphrase (if one exists), you won't have difficulties recovering from a backup. Your coins could be lost if the original derivation path is something completely unorthodox and there would be no one in the world who knows which one it is.