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ESSENTIAL READING FOR TRAVEL & HEALTH INSURANCE PROFESSIONALS
New year, new state of mind
MARCH 2017 • ISSUE 194
Ignorance is not bliss A recent spate of cases where travellers have been left with huge medical bills has once again illustrated the perennial problem of people purchasing insurance coverage but not actually understanding what it covers The latest such case saw an Australian woman’s friend posting emotional pleas for financial help to pay the medical bills for her friend, who was recovering in a private Thai hospital after suffering severe injuries as the result of a moped crash. Although the patient had insurance, it did not cover riding motorcycles. The medical bills reached over AU$52,000, and although Donna Weldon had been cleared as fit to fly, the hospital would not release her until it had been paid for its services, which included surgery for extensive injuries. New Zealand Financial Services Complaints Limited, one of the dispute schemes set up for policyholders who feel they have had their claim unfairly denied, recently published some cases it had seen that also serve to highlight the problem of people buying insurance policies that have surprising limits on them. Examples given include one where a woman’s flight back to New Zealand from the US was cancelled, whereupon she was booked onto another flight, only for that too to be cancelled. The next available flight offered was 48 hours later, but
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12 A new report from a US-based travel insurance provider has an overwhelmingly positive forecast for the industry in 2017, predicting that more travellers will take out insurance cover for their trips Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (BHTP) has released its second annual benchmark white paper report, which identifies a potential 4.9-per-cent increase for travel insurance sales to Americans travelling this year. The report uses surveys and a predictive global travel model to produce its findings, which reveal that 36 per cent of consumers expect to buy more travel insurance in 2017, and nearly 61 per cent of travel agents predict that 2017
will be a better year for travel insurance than 2016. “Each year, we do a deep dive into travel industry trends and forecasts to analyse the correlations and their impact on travel insurance revenues,” said Dean Sivley, president of BHTP. “This report is one of the ways we seek to fulfil our mission to revolutionise the travel insurance industry.” The report’s 10 most influential factors impacting travel insurance sales in 2017 are: • Travel on the rise means more trips to insure in 2017. Forty-one per cent of BHTP travellers indicate that they plan to take more international leisure trips in 2017. Significantly more international leisure trips are covered by travel insurance (39 per cent) than domestic
leisure trips (16 per cent), which appears to lead to an expected increase in travel insurance sales. • Increase in trip costs leads to higher travel insurance revenues. Forty-five per cent of travellers stated that they would buy more travel insurance in 2017 because of the cost of the trip. The expected four-per-cent increase in trip costs due to currency fluctuations, increases in lodging costs, airfares, cruise costs and ground transportation costs can lead to higher travel insurance premiums and eventually higher travel insurance revenues. • Flight issues like cancellations and delays are
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