FEATURE:
Rewriting underwriting
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How is the insurtech revolution changing the way underwriters do business?
REVIEW:
p.46
ITIC UK
A full review of the recent ITIC UK event in Southampton
SERVICE DIRECTORY
ESSENTIAL READING FOR TRAVEL & HEALTH INSURANCE PROFESSIONALS
I wanna be in America, not sure what I’m covered for in America
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JUNE 2019 • ISSUE 221
Ontario terminates health coverage for outbound travellers In what may turn out to be a boost for travel insurance providers – albeit at higher prices for consumers – the Ontario government in early May confirmed that effective 1 October 2019, it would terminate any payments for out-of-country emergency medical services for its residents. Milan Korcok reports
According to a new survey undertaken by travel insurance comparison engine InsureMyTrip, a somewhat concerning percentage of US travellers are not sufficiently clear on the parameters of their health insurance – and whether it would cover them on a trip outside the US
The move will make Ontario the first province or territory to completely abandon such payments, considered one of the pillars of the Canada Health Act, a federal–provincial cost-sharing deal signed in 1984 that required provinces to provide emergency health benefits for outof-province or out-of-country (OOC) travel at the rate it would cost in-province. Residents will still be covered for inter-provincial travel. Up to this point, each of the provinces have been paying OOC medical and hospital bills at variable, and usually very low rates, estimated at no more than five per cent of actual billings, leaving private travel insurers to pay the remainder. Ontario has been paying foreign hospitals a maximum of CA$400 per day for high-level inpatient care, $200 for intermediate care and $50 for outpatient services. Some provinces, British Columbia, for example, have carried their parsimony even further by limiting their OOC payments to a maximum of $100 per day. The announcement of the OOC termination was met by travel insurers with some equanimity because although the expected premium increases (estimated by the Canadian Snowbird Association (CSA) at 7.5
InsureMyTrip surveyed 1,516 US travellers aged 18 and older in April this year, finding that 58 per cent did not know whether their domestic health insurance coverage would stretch to cover an emergency visit to a hospital or doctor in another country. Twenty-four per cent said that they did not think their domestic cover would provide any protection while overseas, and 17 per cent seemed sure that they would be covered for some eventualities. InsureMyTrip has urged US citizens planning an overseas trip to talk to their health insurer so that they can find out for sure whether their domestic plan would extend to emergency medical coverage outside of the US, as the particularities of these extra coverages are extremely varied based on provider and type of policy. Some policyholders might have in-network coverage, limited coverage, or very possibly no coverage whatsoever; InsureMyTrip has also advised travellers to familiarise themselves with the ins and outs of deductibles, co-insurance, co-payments and so on,
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Addressing travel insurance pain points The days of customers gritting their teeth and staying with a provider whose service they consider to be substandard are effectively behind us It has never been easier for dissatisfied consumers to switch to a new company that promises better treatment – and many companies are waking up to this reality, innovating in the realms of personalisation and customer service. A customer satisfaction 29/05/2019 arms race, if itij-ad-strips_malta.pdf you will, which can only be a1positive
thing for developments across the board. Part of navigating this new reality involves knowing what customers do and don’t like, and new research from insurtech company Cover Genius has shed light on a few of the ‘pain points’ that consumers have noted in their dealings with travel insurers. Cover Genius undertook a study of over 2,000 UK-based respondents and found that of the consumers who reported frustrations with their insurers, these frustrations largely boiled down to 17:37 two points of friction. These were the duration of
the claims process – customers reported waiting an average of 10 and a half weeks for a claim to be paid out – and inconsistency of information, with many respondents needing to have multiple conversations with different parties to get the information they needed. Thirty-six per cent of respondents said that they found chasing their claims to be a very stressful process, while 27 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 said that they probably wouldn’t bother claiming
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InterContinental Malta
27-31 OCTOBER 2019