Thomas Cook partners with Cover Genius on embedded travel insurance

Thomas Cook has partnered with Cover Genius to introduce embedded travel insurance for UK customers, expanding the online travel agency’s ancillary offering.

The partnership introduces two opt-in protection products during the purchase of Thomas Cook UK holiday packages: Travel Comprehensive and Trip Cancellation.

Travel Comprehensive includes cover for emergency medical and dental treatment, trip cancellation, or curtailment following a specified illness or injury, and accidental damage, loss, or theft of baggage and electronics.

Trip Cancellation provides cover for prepaid travel costs where a customer has to cancel or cut short their trip because of specified circumstances, including illness or injury affecting the traveller, a travel companion, or close family member.

The products are distributed through Cover Genius’s XCover platform, with the comprehensive travel insurance underwritten by Collinson Insurance, a trading name of Astrenska Insurance.

Pricing is calculated dynamically according to factors including destination, traveller ages, party size, and trip duration.

Peter Smith, SVP Travel at Cover Genius, said emergency medical and trip cancellation protection had emerged as the two most important areas of cover when the company surveyed travellers.

“There’s a clear need to give travellers greater confidence when they book,” he noted, adding that the launch was the first stage of the partnership with Thomas Cook.

Cover Genius has been expanding its embedded travel insurance distribution through airlines and online travel platforms. Earlier this year, it renewed its partnership with Turkish Airlines, which has expanded from an initial domestic deployment to 57 countries, and partnered with Traveloka to provide embedded protection across several Asia-Pacific markets.

In August, the company also acquired German insurtech Friendsurance, strengthening its position in the European bancassurance market and expanding its ability to deliver embedded protection products through financial institutions across the DACH region.