Building Valued Partnerships Through Parametric Travel Insurance Solutions

Taking the learnings from negotiating travel insurance brand and partner agreements, driving an increase of 850 per cent in the number of flights monitored YOY by Blink Parametric, together with technology deployments reaching across 10 markets, Perry and Richard have earned a vast amount of industry experience. They engage daily with prospective global travel insurance partners on the merits of multi-award-winning, real-time flight disruption and lost/delayed luggage solutions. Here, they come together to provide insights on the key factors that influence the decisions and success of prospective partners around the world when considering real-time parametric travel insurance solutions.

1. Partners not competitors

PMcS – Because Blink Parametric operates in a B2B2C 'white label’ capacity, we do not compete with our partners, and you won't find us offering travel insurance or our solutions direct to consumers or under our own brand. Our parametric solutions are fully customisable in terms of product and proposition offering, branding and personalised communications. This allows global insurance brands to successfully and speedily gain the benefit from rolling out distinctive real-time digital assistance offerings, tailored to their specific brand with product differentiation.

This can range from a single trigger flight or luggage delay benefit to a comprehensive or layered suite of solutions with varying benefits, spanning multiple regions. It helps that we are insurer agnostic and focused purely on delivering product and service performance with zero competitive conflict or bias. 

RP – For complex multinational travel insurers and brands with siloed structures that have unique regional needs and requirements, it’s also a benefit that we do not have a ‘one size fits all’ approach. We look at the data and variables of each partner to design a suitable proposition and tailor the solution to their corporate and their travellers' needs.

2. Product demonstration

PMcS – Hands down, the delivery of a live demo of our parametric travel insurance technology from a consumer experience perspective is the most impactful tool at our disposal! A prospective partner joining a live platform demonstration witnesses the entire customer journey and experience. It’s easy to see the flight disruption claim process as a streamlined, real-time provision of customer benefits delivering claims resolution in minutes – the result is powerful, as is a 99 per cent reduction in claims handling time for all parties. This is especially true when compared to the traditional ‘old school’ pay and claim customer experience that only responds weeks or even months after an event.

3. Customer centricity

RP – Partners want to support customers and travellers in their time of need rather than after the fact. Blink Parametric enables partners to provide customer satisfaction in real-time, whilst simultaneously alleviating the claims burden for both the customer and the insurer’s processing side.

PMcS – Our marketing team design customer journeys and information packs, so that the concept can be clearly communicated across the partner organisation as well as to their prospective clients – bringing the real-time flight and luggage delay service, product offering, and benefits to life. 

4. Underwriting rating and proposition design support

PMcS – Given the uniqueness of each travel insurance partnership and the profile of travelling customers, we engage our actuarial team to construct models that help partners and their travel insurers understand the variables at play and indicative underwriting costs for their selected parametric propositions. We do this using our wealth of historic flight delay data available by airline, by airport, for inbound, outbound, domestic and international flights. 

RP – By differentiating from the traditional travel insurance claims experience and marketing effectively to customers, partners can differentiate in a crowded market and gain a material upside in general travel insurance sales and renewals. Furthermore, where partners are looking to drive sales of higher tiers of cover (Platinum, Gold etc) the Flight Disruption and Lost Luggage solutions are a valuable incentive when embedded.

5. Speed and efficiency of deployment

PMcS – Upon approval and build commencement, we allocate a development slot with our technical team and set a launch date. Our typical implementation period is between six and eight weeks. For some partners where we are already embedded into an industry standard platform that they are already using, this can be significantly less. We can deliver and deploy a fully white-labelled cutting-edge parametric travel disruption solution quicker than most partners could even complete a draft specification of such a system.

6. Rapid scalability

PMcS – Post deployment of the parametric travel insurance solution and announcement to the insurance industry media, active partnerships then continue to collaborate directly with our customer success team, who closely monitor the program, provide ongoing support and work to maximise partner ROI on the technology.

Once one market is launched, we often work with our partner to determine priorities for launch into the next travel insurance market or their expansion of parametric services across their travel insurance product portfolio. We also support partners with Request for Proposal (RFP) processes to help them pitch for, and secure, new business opportunities. 

RP – Proof of effective performance delivery in one market is our best recommendation within partner organisations as they consider expanding their digital transformation across wider geographical regions and brand networks.

7. Data and dashboard access

PMcS – Blink Parametric offers comprehensive dashboard access for partners and their insurers providing extensive travel data for active schemes as well as granular customer activity. This is a rich resource for partners to analyse and mine for product development, customer behaviour, marketing opportunities and performance KPIs. 

RP – Through the registration of flight details and travel itinerary, the insurer is now uniquely placed to understand travel profiles so that they can personalise messaging and offerings to the traveller. This could relate to additional forms of cover, directive care towards a PPO medical facility locally in the event of a medical emergency, or the positioning of further tertiary services relevant to the traveller in support of a partner’s wider strategy.

The real-time nature of Blink Parametric travel disruption solutions serve as an excellent means for brands to create an ongoing relationship and value for their customers. They ensure a continuous stream of value during travel, and offer unparalleled flexibility to cater to a diverse array of customer requirements. They also offer additional touch points with customers that may not usually interact with the travel insurance brand.

How the Blink Parametric Flight Disruption solution works:

An insured traveller simply registers their flight details prior to travel. This is a super quick and easy process, additionally it provides added touch points for the travel insurance brand partner to communicate with their client. For some partners such as airlines and online travel agents (OTAs) we can even auto-register the customer’s flight based on data available from the partner.

Blink Parametric then monitors the flight(s) in the background in real-time. Any eligible delay that occurs to the registered flight automatically results in a traveller being proactively notified and being offered choices in real-time that help alleviate the stress and consequences of the delay. These assistance options can include airport lounge access if a flight is delayed by a predetermined number of hours, or a cash payout per traveller, which is directly issued by the platform. There is no need for forms, receipts or phone calls. We also integrate with a global travel concierge service that can provide hotel accommodation reservations for extended delays or flight rebooking for customers. The traveller selects their preferences via their smartphone. The average resolution time is four minutes or less – this is often quicker than it takes a customer to even find and access their travel insurance policy. For some partners we can also allocate reward points back to a membership account or redirect the customer back into the travel partner’s buying eco-system.

For the travel insurance sector, we specialise in high-frequency, high volume, low-value claims with market-leading multi-award winning real-time propositions for global flight delay, flight cancellation, checked airline luggage delay and loss.