Travel chaos sparks extraordinary travel delay insurance claim volumes for Insurers

Blink Parametric has protected more than 60,000 Canadian and US travellers over the holiday period

Cork, Ireland (Dec. 30, 2022) – Travel chaos in the US sparked by severe weather conditions has resulted in more than 11,000 flight cancellations in 1 week, and over 30,000 delays1 leading to thousands of traveller claims, and huge claims processing costs for travel insurers. In a climate of increasing costs of claim processing, many travel insurers across North America will be hit hard on the back of recent storms in this peak travel period.

This is very likely to have widespread implications for the travel insurance industry all over the world, and in turn for policy holders – or would-be policy holders.

Aside from an influx of travel and luggage delay claims as a result of the storm, and the compensation that will have to be paid out as a result, many traditional travel insurance companies are facing a huge overhead and operational burden in processing claims – even those which ultimately might not be accepted must still be assessed and processed. This is a major turning point for the travel insurance industry – and is the ultimate proof point that a major shift in how travel and luggage delay claims are paid is now critically important for the long-term future of the sector.

Blink Parametric works with travel insurers across the globe to improve customer experience and manage costs and claims in real-time, where there is a clear pay-out requirement, e.g., flight cancellation or delay. Blink Parametric’s experience from working with global insurance partners, is that insurers want to pay claims in a timely manner, but many are hampered by the operational and staffing costs of managing the claims process manually, especially at peak times in, what is still, a very traditional industry.

Carl Carter, Chief Commercial Officer commented, “We are seeing continued and increased demand from travel insurers worldwide that are looking to modernise and improve their customer claims experience on high volume, low value claims while mitigating claims handling costs.”

He added, “These recent winter storms in the US and Canada have really shown the benefit of parametric claims handling to both traveller and travel insurer, as we have been able to deliver lounge passes and claims payments in real-time, exactly when the traveller needed it. Our partner travel insurers have also benefited by the ability of our parametric systems to automatically handle claims at scale, especially at peak times of surge like this.”

The cost mitigation efforts by Insurers are being used to counter those exceptional operational costs associated with processing claims, which are only escalating right now based on the scale of flight disruption triggered by recent North American weather.

Blink Parametric is an InsurTech that uses parametric technology coupled with insurance to simplify and expedite claims processing. Reducing operational complexities for Blink Parametric’s insurance partners worldwide in a time of high-risk and ensuring a successful customer experience is a top priority for the company.

Any customer insured with one of Blink Parametric’s travel insurance partners simply registers their flight, and from there the flight and itinerary is automatically monitored in real-time so as to provide digital assistance should an eligible delay or cancellation occur to their scheduled flight (outward, connecting or return). The insurance pay-out or airport lounge pass is made automatically and a range of additional options can be provided, such as hotel accommodation or flight re-booking based on the journey status of the traveller.

What is Blink Parametric?

Blink Parametric is a B2B2C business. Its clients are typically global insurance companies and major travel insurance brands. Its expertise is in delivering innovative InsurTech products globally through its parametric insurance platform. Parametric insurance simply offers a pre-defined amount of cover with automatic pay-out based on the probability of a pre-defined, triggering event occurring during a given period.

To date, Blink Parametric’s parametric solutions span the Travel, Luggage and Cyber sectors. Clients can self-serve, claim assessment is data-led and claim pay-outs are automatic and immediate – all of which would not be the norm in traditional insurance solutions. Real-time event notification allows for real-time problem resolution! Once a disruption occurs, the traveller is immediately offered service choices based on their travel insurer’s coverage that can instantly remove the stress and consequences of the disruption.

The objectives of the game-changing, real-time flight disruption and lost luggage solutions are to enable the traveller to take direct control of how to manage the disruption in their time of need and not weeks after the event like traditional travel insurance would provide. This is Insurtech at its best – uniquely delighting customers with real value, saving time and stress, and providing assistance through a simple, seamless solution with the speed and convenience they demand – whilst providing cost savings and removing the operational burden for the travel insurer. This is a multi-user, multi-currency and fully flexible multi-lingual platform and 100% automated which can fully integrate with clients’ API.

About Blink Parametric

Blink Parametric is an award-winning InsurTech that transforms its clients’ traditional insurance offerings into superior service experiences with simple, intuitive and transparent parametric products. Its proven platform serves as the conduit for high frequency, low severity claims across Travel, with flight disruption and lost luggage solutions as well as developing solutions within the travel weather sector and online personal data monitoring and cyber solutions. It partners globally with insurance and financial services companies in Asia, Europe, North America and Central and Latin America. Founded in 2016, it became the first Insurtech in the FCA (UK) Sandbox programme and was acquired by CPP Group (AIM CPP) in March 2017. Since then, Blink Parametric made TheINSURTECH100 (2019, 2020, 2022), an annual list of the worlds’ most innovative InsurTech companies. Selected to join Cohort 5 of the prestigious Lloyd’s Lab innovation accelerator programme in 2020, it developed a market-ready Business Interruption offering. It has progressively expanded its services platform to become a world leader in parametric insurance product innovation, winning various awards including Gold for Excellence in Technology – Service Provider in the Insurance Times Awards 2022, Best Use of Technology for Customer Experience and Best Customer App in the 2022 Insurance Times Tech & Innovation Awards, Claims Innovation of the Year at the European Risk Management Awards 2022 and Outstanding Industry Contribution of the Year at the 2022 ITIJ: International Travel & Health Insurance Journal Awards. For more information, visit blinkparametric.com.

About CPP Group

CPP Group is a technology-driven assistance company that creates embedded and ancillary assistance products and resolution services that reduce disruption to everyday life for millions of people around the world, at the time and place they are needed. These products are provided through partnerships with leading insurance, banking and finance companies as either embedded solutions or as relevant add-ons to enhance their core offering and deliver additional revenue streams. CPP is listed on AIM, operated by the London Stock Exchange. For more information, visit international.cppgroup.com.

SOURCE: Blink Innovation via Fuller Marketing

Tags: Blink Innovation, claims, InsurTech, InsurTech Spotlight, travel, United States (USA)