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The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) is the UK’s leading general insurance intermediary organisation representing the interests of insurance brokers, intermediaries and their customers.
BIBA membership includes just under 2,000 regulated firms who employ more than 100,000 staff. General insurance brokers contribute 1% of GDP to the UK economy; they arrange 54% of all general insurance, 36% of all general personal insurance and 78% of all commercial insurance business. Insurance brokers put the client’s interests first, providing advice, access to suitable insurance protection and risk management.
As discussed, we are responding to the questions raised in your e-mail not to the consultation questions.
- How do you and your customers use our travel advice service? Where and when is it most useful?
It is a challenge for an individual insurance broker to be aware at any one time of the different risks in over 225 countries around the world, therefore having a Government service that provides a real-time RAG system is most useful. We find the most beneficial element the online service are maps with the facility to drill down to show which areas are safe or unsafe. This enables our members to give helpful guidance to customers planning trips abroad also helping them to avoid invalidating their travel insurance through entering into any amber or red areas.
The service is most often used at point of sale so that advice can be given about what insurance policy restrictions might apply in particular countries that may be considered a higher risk than normal. It is also a useful tool after an incident such as an act of terrorism or natural disaster providing important advice and information to travellers and the insurance sector.
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What works and what doesn’t work for you about the current travel advice system? What changes would you like to see?
a) Listing medical facilities online
We believe that any extra detail or comments about local medical facilities would be helpful on two counts. Firstly, for any traveller requiring medical attention to more easily find suitable facilities and secondly for travel insurers, who have informed us that this would help in underwriting risks.
We understand that local embassies have a list of medical facilities and we would recommend that they be listed or linked to on the site, with an indication of which are state operated. This is particularly relevant in EHIC card participating territories as the arrangement applies to state medical facilities but is of not benefit if travellers are taken to private facilities.
b) Accessing insurance
Some holiday or business travellers find it difficult to find insurance perhaps due to for example; pre-existing medical conditions, older ages, gap-year travel, hazardous pursuits etc. and our not for profit Find-A-Broker service has been most successful in helping travellers contact specialist brokers to access suitable travel insurance.
BIBA is a lead participant in the Government’s Age agreement – transparency and access in motor and travel insurance for older people. where in three years we have helped 87,458 holiday makers access cover they would have otherwise been unable to find. We therefore suggest the FCO website gives greater prominence to BIBA’s Find-A-Broker not for profit service in order to help holiday makers access the important travel insurance protection they need. Currently there is only a minor mention of this service under the legal expenses section which is of course only a small element of travel insurance cover.
- c) Mapping
We think country maps are helpful but note that not all countries seem to have a map and would suggest this always be included.
- d) Insurance advice
We were pleased to see that this site is mobile optimised, that it covers concerns over the suitability of packaged bank account insurance limits, that it highlights the fact that some matters require referral to insurers ie medical conditions, hazardous activities and also points out there may be and limits on possessions covered .
However, we think there needs to be clearer and more detailed information about checking home insurance; currently in the overview section it is not clear what you are suggesting should be checked. We have assumed it refers to personal possessions cover worldwide.
Finally, in the emergency medical section you say that it is important to answer any questions from your insurer. However, many policies are distributed through brokers or other intermediaries so either they should be mentioned specifically or you should use the term ‘insurance provider’.
e) Essential travel
Some insurance providers have said the term “All but essential travel” can be confusing with some customers asking what constitutes “essential travel”. It would be helpful to see examples of what is considered essential.
- How helpful would the introduction of a four tier system be to you? How would this change or influence your business decisions? What impact would it have on customer behaviour? Would it make a difference to ordinary travel insurance or for company travel insurance (such as insurance for loss of earnings, loss of business or public liability cover for tour operators)?
We would welcome an additional fourth tier set between green and amber that recommended ‘extra vigilance’ for travellers. We think that this is very sensible and helpful to customers who may be unsure about which areas of certain countries might have a temporarily heightened level of risk but not to the extent which you would warn against all but essential travel.
We have spoken to our members and to insurers about the potential for this and have asked them if they believe it would trigger cancellation of the policy in the same way as the current amber and red warnings. They do not believe this will be the case and have advised cover would continue up to an amber warning (against all but essential travel). It would also be very difficult to prove that an individual had not sufficiently exercised extra caution and vigilance so we believe it would be extremely difficult for any insurer to deny cover to a customer if they were caught up in an incident in an area of ‘extra-vigilance’.
Some providers have warned that introducing a new tier warning of ‘extra vigilance’ may lead to more cases of people having a disinclination to travel, which is not covered under travel insurance policies.
- How useful would you find it if we stopped using our fixed levels of terrorism threat (high, general, underlying and low) and replaced these with more background information on the frequency and type of terrorist attacks?
We would welcome the additional information regarding the background, frequency and type. However, we would still find it helpful to have the overarching fixed level of high, general, underlying and low as the FCO are far better placed to make that high level judgement than any individual person reading background information. Ultimately, people need a clear and simple indication as to whether it is safe for them to travel or not.
I would be very happy to discuss our response with you in more detail.
Yours sincerely
Graeme Trudgill, FCII
Executive Director
0207 397 0218
trudgillg@biba.org.uk
The post BIBA responds to Foreign and Commonwealth Office consultation – Travel Advice appeared first on British Insurance Brokers' Association.
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