Industry Reports - Ancileo

UI/UX Design & Mobile Optimisation in Travel Insurance Done Right

web-setup — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 01:45:17 +0000

With virtually every business selling in the digital world, optimal user experience has become a must-have rather than a nice-to-have.

For airlines selling travel insurance products, it has become imperative to offer a good user interface – user experience (UI/UX) design to capture attention, sell and succeed in a competitive marketplace.

In 2022, 75% of Australian and New Zealand airlines benchmarked changed their travel insurance (TI) UI. Compare this to the measly 7.9% of Asian airlines benchmarked, along with just 6.3% of those in the Middle East and Africa.

Why Good UI/UX Design Matters

A great UI and UX is a key component of a successful product. The right design interfacing between users and a website or app should look great, quickly deliver what the user needs, and be easy to use, seamless, and intuitive.

UI and UX are often used in the same context, but they are different:

UI refers to the look and feel of the product, and comprises interactive elements such as buttons, icons, color scheme, typography, and imagery.
UX is the user experience during the journey of landing on the website or app through to the end action. It includes the emotions stirred or provoked during the interaction with the product.

According to market research firm Forrester, great UI can increase conversion rates by 200%. Seamless UX, on the other hand, can improve it by 300% to 400%.

Roughly 70% of online customers have abandoned shopping carts because of poor UX, warned Baymard Institute. This means e-commerce businesses lose big by not prioritising their target customers’ UI/UX journey on the site or app.

Inbound marketing specialists at ImpactBND have found sobering statistics, too. Seventy-nine percent of people who don’t enjoy their website experience click the “Back” button and move on to another site. The problem is particularly common for mobile users, with 52% of online users with a poor mobile experience “less likely to engage with a company.”

The long and short of it: Good UI/UX helps brands land better outcomes in the long term, generating more leads and enhancing conversion rates, and in turn translating to increased revenues.

Tips to Improve UI/UX of Travel Insurance Products

For airlines, here are tips for UI/UX optimisation for TI in-path integration:

Think mobile first

Mobile optimisation is also critically important, as 9 out of 10 airlines have a bigger mobile traffic than desktop traffic. This means mobile commerce accounts for a high composition of air ticket sales.

Ryan Air

JetBlue Airways

Wizz Air

Optimise for screen size

Mobile design seeks to fit content on the small screen. This is why screen size affects all aspects of design, including navigation. If you’re designing for mobile first, prioritise elements from most to least important. It’s easier to add further elements as the screen size increases.

Make the ‘Buy Insurance’ tab stand out

Remove all barriers to finding, noticing, and creating an emotional response to the Buy tab. For instance, in the Include Travel Cover section, add a “Recommended” tag in a standout color plus the total pricing breakdown per day.

Keep it simple with a minimal design

Simplify tabs for a clear, direct customer journey. A minimal UI is not only straightforward but also helps improve speed. In the example above, a succinct summary of the insurance benefits comes in a checklist that commands visual attention on the right side.

Personalise!

Your bid for a simple, straightforward display should come with elements that drive home the message for your target audience, e.g., the solo traveller or the multigenerational family groups.

Execute this through the header, accompanying images and text – but don’t be limited to these in reaching out to specific traveller types.

Among airlines vying for market share in travel insurance today, UI/UX design proves to be as crucial as the product and price themselves as a key differentiator.

Thinking ahead and understanding the investment involved in UX design and its potential will go a long way in achieving long-term targets as well as establishing brand loyalty.

The post UI/UX Design & Mobile Optimisation in Travel Insurance Done Right first appeared on Ancileo.

The post UI/UX Design & Mobile Optimisation in Travel Insurance Done Right appeared first on Ancileo.

Mental Health Inclusivity Makes Cover-More Competitive in Travel Insurance

web-setup — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 01:44:46 +0000

In today’s world striving for diversity and inclusion, differentiating travel insurance (TI) can mean integrating a mental health benefit in the core offer. This is what Cover-More, a global TI and medical assistance provider headquartered in Sydney, Australia, did exactly in 2017.

In that year, Cover-More became one of the first providers in the country to remove the general exclusion for mental health conditions. Prior to said change, policy relating to mental health was usually worded this way:

The Why: Listening to the Customer, Changing Perceptions

Cover-More saw changing perceptions all around the world, prompting a review of its priorities in its travel insurance offerings.

“In Australia, public sentiment and stigma can change very quickly, and travel insurance providers must listen to their customers,” said Michael Storozhev, General Manager for Strategic Underwriting AUNZ and Head of Global Insurance Products and Underwriting at Cover-More.

Cover-More travel insurance policy wording extract

In 2017, Cover-More was among the first TI providers in Australia to remove the general exclusions for mental health. Dubbing them as “discriminatory” exclusions that were unfortunately rather standard in the local and global market, Cover-More put its strong industry advocacy to use to ensure TI products in the country followed suit.

In redesigning its TI product with mental illness benefit in mind, Cover-More strived for wider inclusivity for other medical conditions, such as for travellers with learning difficulties and ADHD.

It also aimed to tailor its products to customer needs, with some youth-centric solutions, such as Freely, incorporating autism in its standard coverage.

Its product design approach: treat mental health conditions just like any other health condition a customer may have. This was a far cry from the time when insurers required psychiatrists to document and diagnose any anxiety, depression or mental illness before approving claims.

“This customer experience was complicated, and in the last five years, we’ve seen the industry moving away from such requirements,” Storozhev added.

Differentiated Travel Insurance Today

Cover-More continues to be one of few Australian providers to include low-risk mental health conditions in standard coverage without the need to complete a medical screening.

As of 2019, there’s been a 600% increase in customers reaching out to confirm they had coverage for mental health conditions.

To date, the insurer consistently designs products covering anxiety and depression in Australia comprising 80% of travellers with mental health conditions, while simplifying the customer experience.

“There should be a recognition that such societal changes are not isolated to just mental health, and inclusivity is a key wider priority for Cover-More,” Storozhev said.

Going Beyond Policy Wording Changes

In walking its talk of mental health support, Cover-More goes beyond policy wording and integrates the support in the wider insurance proposition.

Complementary programs to support the insured’s mental health include the following:

Free trauma counselling to those who witnessed horrific events overseas, such as the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, and the Nepal earthquakes in 2015. Trauma counselling, typically offered outside of TI policies, are provided to Cover-More customers by experienced internal psychologists.

Simplified policy purchase, where anxiety and depression are included as standard coverage, with no detailed medical assessment required.

Reduced planning and travel stress from COVID-19 uncertainty, where Cover-More and its in-house assistance provider World Travel Protection provide additional COVID-19 guidance to customers through a travel risk tool for planning their international travel.

The tool allows customers to view any up-to-date entry and quarantine requirements, currently COVID-19 rules for public spaces, as well as the COVID-19 policies of more than 75 major airlines to remove any unpleasant surprises when entering new destinations.

Since 2017, Cover-More’s product development continues to evolve, with the insurer recognizing that more can be done even with the removal of general exclusions as a strong first step.

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Winning Deals: Tips for Travel Insurance RFPs and Partnerships

web-setup — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 01:44:18 +0000

As insurers and travel players move from a product to ecosystem play, fostering partnerships becomes a science of strategy. Insurers should show early on that they are the best provider possible with the right capabilities to serve diverse (as well as local) customers’ needs.

Airlines tend to invite the top four or five travel insurers they recognise as the best potential candidates for their business.

Industry veteran and Ancileo consultant Erick Morazin notes, however, that these insurers may have the capabilities but may not always understand the local needs of the airline’s origin country or in countries the airline is operating in. “It is important to remember a typical ‘retail’ airline insurance scheme needs a local insurer in all countries of residence of the passengers,” he said.

Volaris makes it a point to evaluate its partnership in several categories, such as price, solution times, technology, marketing efforts, and product conversion. “We then compare it with new partners’ offers to make a decision,” shared Veronica Nieto, Ancillary Product & Pricing Senior Manager at Volaris.

The Mexican airline looks at low-cost premium rates, technological tools for customer claims, and travel-related benefits for customers when seeking a travel insurance partner.

2 Types of Tendering Process

Airlines can consider the following types of tendering process:

Open Tendering – Here, any supplier can submit a tender. While it stimulates competition leading up to competitive pricing and gives new or emerging suppliers a chance, open tendering unwittingly includes tenders that are not suitable to the contract. It also entails more time to evaluate tenders.
Limited Tendering – It exclusively invites a few select suppliers and entails direct negotiation, where only one supplier is selected. On the upside, it is an efficient process and invited suppliers tend to have an established track record for the contract and its size. On the downside, there is bias present, excluding potentially viable suppliers.

Soraya Essalhi, Chief Operating Officer at Ancileo and formerly with Allianz Partners as a global transformation head, says that most airlines open limited tenders to avoid losing time with small competitors that cannot execute the request.

To increase their chances of participating in limited tendering, many insurers use requests for information (RFIs) and altogether avoid requests for proposals (RFPs), Essalhi added.

What Airlines Should Probe

In their RFP, on the other hand, airlines should pore over the following items:

Current provider’s past performance in the last three years
Technical capabilities per market
Insurance claims systems in place
Assistance provider and claims system in place
Interactive voice response system in place
Reporting capabilities
Resource availability, both local and central

Airlines should prepare an FAQ document, which consolidates answers relating to the RFP scope. Some details it includes are booking statistics, customer segmentation by demographic and current travel insurance purchase conversion rate by country.

Airlines, too, are better off validating early on that the insurer is able to support existing markets by having valid insurance licenses in individual markets. Essalhi cites some smaller markets may not be economically viable to deploy even with an insurer license, so it’s always difficult to get 100% coverage.

How Insurers Can Maximise Chances of Winning

Where the tender goes is interesting: it usually gets sent by the airline to the local insurance teams or their global travel insurance experts. Both local and global teams analyse the tender request and information from the airline.

To increase their chances of landing the contract, insurers should pay attention to the following critical factors:

Market
Region
Airline reservation system in place
Network of the company
Existing provider
Ability to challenge the incumbent on capabilities and/or financial proposition

To get things started, insurers usually initiate a kick-off call involving all parties, led by the business development unit. Internally, timelines are shared and the insurer team gets the next few days to clarify tender details. Once the process is complete, it typically takes a week to receive the results of the tender.

Much of what goes into the decision-making may be out of the insurer’s control, but one thing is important: the insurer team’s availability during the entire process.

For Nieto, a successful partnership between an airline and insurer boils down to a few key elements: good communication, clear priorities on both sides and teamwork to offer the best product and solutions possible.

The post Winning Deals: Tips for Travel Insurance RFPs and Partnerships first appeared on Ancileo.

The post Winning Deals: Tips for Travel Insurance RFPs and Partnerships appeared first on Ancileo.

Optimising In-Path Conversion Rates in Travel Insurance

web-setup — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 05:05:40 +0000

Amid a gradual industry-wide push to serve customers’ diverse needs and provide access to interconnected solutions, travel insurance is no longer largely offered as a separate, complementary, or mere add-on offer to a core product that’s already been purchased.

In the industry’s shift from siloed offerings to ecosystem solutions, in-path travel insurance – also known as embedded insurance or integrated path – offers the convenience and customer centricity that surpass those offered by white label or advertisement pop-up.

The State of In-Path Travel Insurance Among Airlines

In-path sales follow a clear growth path in 2022, as powered by embedded insurance partnerships for travel insurance along with a range of other driving factors.

Of 114 airlines benchmarked in 2022, 73.1% offered in-path travel insurance. This meant 37 more airlines integrated in-path sales this year from 2021 levels of 77 airlines.

Notably, 18 airlines maintained insurance partnership without an in-path offer, a decrease from 2021 levels of 32 airlines. An increase from 2021 levels (18 airlines) can also be seen in 49 airlines in 2022 opting for white label or dedicated sites for selling travel insurance, whether they have a separate in-path or not.

Asia and Europe have the highest number of airlines with in-path insurance.

The former had 9 new airlines adding in-path in 2022 (30 airlines in total) from the previous year, while the latter had 18 more airlines offer insurance in path from already high numbers in 2021 (28 or 77.8%) leading up to 2022 (46 or 92.0%).

5 Trends Powering In-Path Travel Insurance Among Airlines

Here are five things that contribute to the success of in-path travel insurance, where airlines and other travel players can incentivise “opting in” for insurance purchase.

1. Most travel insurance in-path found in Add-Ons and Payments pages

According to Olivier Michel, CEO and Founder of Ancileo: “To be consistent (or limited by their tech), airlines tend to add travel insurance in their ancillary add-on section, where it is mixed with numbers of other ancillary services.”

This, however, is a mistake: placing the travel insurance integration on the Payment page actually drives the highest conversion.

Most airlines, too, offer just 1 plan for in-path integration. While it makes sense not to confuse travellers with multiple offers, offering 2 plans with substantial benefits and pricing differences actually bodes well for conversion.
“For example, you could offer a comprehensive travel insurance (avg premium USD50) and simple cancellation product (avg premium USD15),” he noted.

2. Optimise pricing

Insurers take into account several different factors to determine pricing. These factors include trip cost, trip length, age, as well as destination.

Experts recommend the following pricing strategies:

Design the pricing strategy to the destination served by the airline, i.e., domestic versus international flights.
Assess pricing sensitivity based on several factors to offer an appropriately priced plan to every traveller.

For Michael Grossman, AVP, A&H – Travel Insurance at Starr, it couldn’t be simpler: Offer a simple, low-cost product so the price does not become a purchase deterrent.

“If the traveller does not opt in for the insurance in the purchase path, an email can be pushed out as a second opportunity for them to purchase the insurance. In both cases highlight the ability to cancel the policy with a full refund within a specific time frame,” Grossman said.

3. Build on your ecosystem via cross-selling

CEB Piso Protect is a new product that Philippine airline Cebu Pacific started offering in April 2022. It is available for purchase for both passengers and non-passengers through the following channels:

Flight ticket confirmation page for passengers
Clicking in from marketing push emails
Clicking social media post links
Going straight to the CEB website

Qantas Insurance also built a full suite of insurance ecosystem beyond selling travel insurance, incorporating health, life, car, and home insurance.

These offers are integrated with its Frequent Flyer program, allowing for offset of purchases using miles.

4. Drive real-time personalisation

Personalising based on individual travel needs continues to incentivise in-path purchase for customers. This means coverages that are customised based on demographics and travel patterns can enhance the embedded travel insurance offering.

This entails information exchange between airlines and insurers, including travel destinations, age, travel cost, advance purchase in days or months, as well as average number of people per transaction.

The end goal is to keep plans simple and easy to understand, and to eliminate unnecessary coverages.

This is hardly a one-off endeavor; continue A/B testing and revisit relevant data real-time to check the relevance of the insurance offering.

3. Frequently review travel insurance partnerships

Airlines and other travel players are well-placed to analyse a range of factors involved in the partnership, including price, project deployment timeline, technology (e.g., customer claims platform), marketing efforts, and the product’s conversion rates.

They should also conduct monthly review and reporting as well as tracking of customer feedback.

Bangkok Airways conducts monthly meetings with its travel insurance partners to bounce off ideas, such as what to offer seasonally and how to improve the in-path display.

For Volaris, it is important to stay attuned to market trends.

“We also evaluate the travel insurance benefits to make improvements in case it is needed, for example the pikes of the pandemic,” said Daniela Avila Del Abrego, Ancillary Product Management Leader. “We also seek to have a competitive price to generate a good profit, and value teamwork to offer the best product possible that works for both parties.”

The post Optimising In-Path Conversion Rates in Travel Insurance first appeared on Ancileo.

The post Optimising In-Path Conversion Rates in Travel Insurance appeared first on Ancileo.

5 Key Trends in Airline-Insurer Partnerships in 2022

web-setup — Wed, 23 Nov 2022 06:56:08 +0000

Airlines emerge as a key player in the travel rebound being seen around the world. With various segments including leisure (like family vacations and adventure seekers) and business as bright spots for the industry, there’s a huge opportunity for these intermediaries to initiate new offerings and partnerships in travel insurance.

As recovery looms large, there are subtle to significant shifts and trends emerging in airlines’ insurer partnerships that defy traditional distribution models and tap into digital means and capabilities via embedded insurance.

Trend #1: Opt-In Travel Insurance Integration

Due to regulations, the majority of travel insurance integration for airlines is on opt-in integration.

In opt-in integration, the customer needs to tick off the travel insurance option to purchase with their flight ticket, effectively “opting in” to buy the product. As such, optimising the product display becomes highly important to attract customers.

In contrast, opt-out integration auto-selects the travel insurance in the flight ticket purchase, and the customer has to opt out if they don’t want to purchase. While this naturally converts better, market regulations worldwide have been shifting more towards opt-in, such as Russia in 2021.

Trend #2: Most Travel Insurance In-Path Are Strategically Positioned On The Add-Ons and Payment Touchpoints

The in-path or in-booking path is an option integrated within the airline booking website – not white labels, not website ads, and not purchases redirected to another website. This option allows customers to buy their travel insurance the same time they confirm the purchase of their flight tickets.

Consistent with 2021 numbers, 2022 data shows that most travel insurance in-path are placed on the Add-Ons and Payments page.

Whether for consistency or as a limitation of their technology, airlines tend to add travel insurance in their Add-Ons section, where it is mixed in with other ancillary services. This is a less-than-optimal position, as placing the travel insurance integration on the Payment page actually drives the highest conversion.

Trend #3: Frequent Review, Clear Communication Pave Path to Success

Optimising their TI offerings means airlines should remain on the lookout for market trends and developments. Factors to analyse include the following:

Price
Relationship with travel insurer
Project deployment timeline
Technology, e.g., customer claims platforms
Marketing efforts
Customer feedback
And more

It is crucial for airlines and insurers to evaluate the travel insurance benefits to make improvements in case it is needed, such as the pikes of the pandemic. Competitive pricing – generating a good profit – as well as teamwork make it possible for both parties to offer the best product possible.

To navigate challenges, good communication and clear prioritisation for both airlines and insurers are both key. Crucial factors to discuss include low-cost premium rates, technological tools for customer claims, insurer branding and API capabilities of the insurer, to name a few.

Trend #4: Cross-Sell to Products Beyond Travel

Airlines potentially build on their insurance ecosystem by cross-selling to products beyond travel.

Qantas Insurance has built a full suite of an insurance ecosystem beyond selling TI through expanding into health, life, car, and home insurance. Integration with its Frequent Flyer program also allows for offset of purchases using miles.

Cebu Pacific in the Philippines offers personal accident insurance coverage for hospitalisation and surgery due to accidents, with affordable premium payments from as low as US$0.02 a day.

Mental health benefits also add to differentiation, with wider inclusivity for related conditions such as for travelers with learning difficulties and ADHD.

Trend #5: Personalisation and Mobile UI/UX Optimisation Are Key

Personalisation is a prevailing theme in airlines’ travel insurance offerings. Airlines are moving more towards personalising travel insurance benefits for varying segments, such as families, solo or adventure seekers, and business travellers.

UI/UX optimisation, including mobile integration, remains critically important now more than ever.

Personalising displays on different segments, for example, greatly assists in conversion. The trick is to keep it simple with a minimal design, removing visual “noise” that serve as barriers to purchase.

Of airlines’ mobile traffic composition, 46.8% forms more than half of the total web traffic volume. This means that mobile commerce accounts for a high composition of air ticket sales.

Mobile optimisation of TI in-path integration can involve the following:

Simplified tabs for customer journey
Use of minimal UI design for speed
Optimising for different operating systems and screen resolutions
More simple yet meaningful tweaks to mobile

The post 5 Key Trends in Airline-Insurer Partnerships in 2022 first appeared on Ancileo.

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Ancileo Releases ‘2022 Global Airlines Travel Insurance Benchmark’ Amid Post-Pandemic Travel Surge

web-setup — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 01:33:13 +0000

Significant growth among airlines with in-path travel insurance, the highest number of partnerships in Asia and Europe, and the continuing dominance of global insurance giants surfaced in the comprehensive study comprising 156 airlines globally

November 2022, Singapore – More airlines globally offer embedded travel insurance and maintain insurer partnerships in 2022 amid the post-pandemic recovery of the sector, while global insurers such as Allianz Partners, Chubb, AIG and AXA Partners remain dominant in the travel insurance market.

These are some key findings from “2022 Global Airlines Travel Insurance Benchmark,” a report from Ancileo, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform powering the distribution of embedded travel insurance for highly recognized travel brands such as Etihad Airways, Scoot, One Vasco, and some 15 other partners that include a top 3 Chinese online travel agency and a top 5 global hospitality group.

Published for the second year in a row, the 160+ page report covers 156 airlines’ travel insurance partnerships and trends in global travel insurers’ dominance in regions across the world. It also features more than 80 in-path travel insurance screenshots this year.

The new report provides the following findings:

In-path travel insurance: Also known as embedded insurance or integrated path, in-path travel insurance grew in 2022, as powered by partnerships along with a range of other factors. In 2022, a majority (73.1%) of 156 airlines surveyed offered travel insurance in-path, compared to 55.8% of 138 airlines surveyed in 2021.
Top regions with in-path: Europe and Asia logged the highest percentage of airlines with in-path integration at 92.0% and 75.0% respectively.
Opt-in integration: Due to regulations, the majority of travel insurance integration for airlines was also opt-in, where the insurance needs to be selected by the customer in order to be purchased with the flight ticket. This is in contrast to opt-out, where travel insurance is automatically selected during purchase. While the latter naturally creates higher conversion, opt-out markets are only a select few and regulations in markets such as Russia shifted the market towards opt-in in 2021.
Highest conversion in-path: Most in-path travel insurance was placed on the Add-Ons and Payments page, where the latter is driving the highest conversion. Personalising key messages, with visuals and images, play a key role in conversion.
Insurers’ reach via airline partnerships: In their global reach based on airline website traffic, Allianz dominated this year with its 29 airline partnership deals, followed by Chubb with 22 airline deals, AIG with 15 airline deals, and AXA with 11 airline deals.

Olivier Michel, Ancileo CEO and Founder, said: “Intermediaries represent 73.5% of travel insurance distribution globally. Airlines have been a key distributor way before the hype around embedded insurance, yet there is still a lot of untapped potential linked to personalisation, product innovation and insurance ecosystem building.”

“We first released the airlines travel insurance benchmark in 2021 to help inform insurers and travel players of trends and best practices that will enable them to better reach and convert travellers. We received positive responses and as such refreshed the benchmark this year, with improved and refined data.”

Ancileo supports insurers with their travel insurance distribution and claims through its expertise, technology and global relationship network that helps grow its partners’ portfolio. It delivers customized digital solutions that complement existing insurer legacy systems, empowering them to partner with any distribution ecosystem and tap into entirely new growth opportunities.

Access the report here.

About Ancileo
Ancileo is a software as a service platform for the insurance ecosystem, offering a comprehensive range of technology solutions to enable Travel Insurance partnerships between insurers and their distribution partners. Live in 19 countries with 15 partners across the travel ecosystem, Ancileo offers core capabilities including API solution, white label, agent portal management, claims automation, policy management and localized payment solutions for insurance premium collection. Helping insurers partner with any digital travel platform and ecosystem and industry players navigate industry trends and movements, Ancileo has also produced the annual Travel Outlook and World Travel Insurance Benchmark for Airlines reports since 2021. For more information, visit www.ancileo.com.

Ancileo Communications Group
contact@ancileo.com | www.ancileo.com

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