UK General ties up with Fit 2 Trip
Specialist and niche insurer UK General has used its personal lines experience and Group capacity to secure a deal to supply travel insurance to Spanish residents as part of a wider ambition to increase its European presence. The five-year deal – with travel insurer Fit 2 Trip – is part of UK General’s strategy to increase its personal lines business beyond the UK by harnessing capacity available in the Group’s Republic of Ireland company.
UK General worked with Fit 2 Trip to design and build insurance cover from scratch, meeting the client’s brief with a flexible approach to pricing and commission and offering the level of stability Fit 2 Trip expected from a UK insurer. Fit 2 Trip claims to be the first travel insurance company to offer English and Spanish language medical screening services to customers based in Spain, which allows travellers to declare existing medical conditions.
UK General’s recently-created Euro Steering Committee – including compliance, underwriting, finance and supply chain experts – has overseen the product design from a pan-European perspective. The company has also built in a level of customer-focused protection that is compliant with local regulations. Karen Beales, managing director of personal lines at UK General, said: “For the European personal lines market, we have tapped into our own Group capacity to broaden the range and specialism of the insurance products we can offer. Fit 2 Trip – after approaching a number of providers in Spain and failing to find the flexibility and pricing they wanted – came to us.”
Simon Powell, managing director of Fit 2 Trip, added: “We were looking for an underwriter to move into new markets and it was a challenge to find an organisation that had both the risk appetite and the knowledge to take a leap of faith into different markets. UK General’s experience in the travel sector was key to doing this. And this means we are now able to provide travel insurance products that allow customers with pre-existing medical conditions the peace of mind to travel.”