Changed travel habits and a post-COVID-19 travel boom are helping boost opportunities for brokers offering travel insurance to SMEs. In recent months, both underwriters and brokers have reported increasing demand for tailored travel insurance policies that cover both business and leisure activities.
“We have seen a great uptake,” said Daniel Berry (pictured right
), partner with Dudgeon Berry Insurance Group, headquartered in Lismore, NSW. Berry was referring to a leisure travel product that his family-run insurance brokerage added to its corporate travel offering last year.
The main drivers behind the uptake, he said, have been two-fold. The first, said Berry, is that SME clients have been able to grow the export side of their businesses. “The businesses that we assist are seeing more and more exports globally and we’re seeing those clients travelling to meet with new stockists or supply chains,” he said.
The other stimulus behind demand for tailored travel cover, Berry said, has been the increasing tendency of these SME businesses to mix business and pleasure and, after their business trip, take a holiday in the overseas destination.
“I guess there is an opportunity to add on some additional leisure time to those trips to enjoy other parts of the world while they are there,” said Berry. “Looking at our data, we have an even mix of business travel products and pure leisure products.”
Brokerages like Berry’s are adapting their SME travel offerings to meet this demand. He said there are “quite a few” tailored corporate travel covers available from insurers and underwriters that suit his SME clients. What tends to differentiate them, he said, is the claims service they provide. Sometimes, said Berry, the lack of quality claims services can be “frustrating.”
In terms of a cover that offers both business and leisure travel cover, Berry said there are still relatively few options for SMEs. Until last year, he said, “we really have never had much of a solution for our clients in this space.” The decision to offer PassportCard’s combination offering 12 months ago, he said, prompted an uptick of interest from SME clients. “For the leisure cover option, we saw some really strong uptake in this offering once we launched this last year,” he said.
Other drivers of the uptick include convenience. Rather than buying single trip cover separately, for either a business or leisure trip multiple times during a year, many SMEs are opting for an annual policy that does both.
“It’s a good way to provide a solution to cover all their trips during the year without the hassle of having to take out individual policies each time,” said Berry.
Another driver in the increased interest in travel insurance, which is more difficult to assess without further study, could be the rise of a more risk-conscious culture in Australia. Berry – who has worked with SMEs in the travel space for almost two decades – suggested that, compared to earlier in his career, he’s noticing that more clients are concerned about travel risks, both at home and abroad.
“We do get the question a lot of if they need this cover, or if they can rely on their ‘free’ credit card travel insurance – but that comes with added risks,” he said.
Are you a broker in the travel sector? Please tell us below about the opportunities you are seeing and how demands from SMEs have changed.
