It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in travel insurance policies purchased among travelers. Study after study after study has shown that Americans are becoming more likely to purchase travel insurance in the future, seeking benefits such as trip cancellation due to sick/injured family member or self and coverage for medical expenses.
The additional good news, according to embedded insurance company Cover Genius and Momentive.ai (the research company of SurveyMonkey), is that 42 percent of U.S. travelers plan to switch from their current travel insurance channel due to dissatisfaction with coverage and claims experiences. In fact, a majority of U.S. travelers (61 percent) would prefer to purchase travel insurance directly from their travel provider or advisor for their next trip—a significant growth from the 35 percent who purchased this way in the past 18 months.
In comparing recent purchases versus future purchase preferences for travel insurance, 69 percent of people who purchased protection from their travel provider would do so again, whereas 44 percent of travelers who previously purchased protection from an online insurer said they’d switch to another source of protection next time. For those who got insurance through their credit card, 45 percent indicated a preference to switch to another source.
Findings show that while 34 percent of U.S. travelers got travel insurance to protect themselves from pandemic-related issues since March 2020, more than a quarter (27 percent) of these travelers had pandemic-related claims rejected.
When asked to rate their claims experience, customers scored an NPS of -26 for all sources of travel insurance (travel provider/agent, online insurer or credit card). The results also showed that claims sourced from travel providers or agencies were among the shortest to process (11 days and -15 NPS) and achieved the highest post-claim NPS, while credit cards were 50 percent slower and the least satisfactory (16 days and -32 NPS). Only “corporate policy” topped travel agency processing time at 10 days.
The study also showed a correlation between NPS and resolution time for claims, suggesting that claims backed by faster payments, clearer policy wordings, online status updates, online filing and avoidance of data re-entry can all increase satisfaction rates.
The report is based on a survey conducted in September and October 2021 of 6,000 census-balanced travelers in the United States.
Source: Cover Genius
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