Webinar Transcript: Travel, Technology, and You
Travel, Technology, and You
Scott Walton: Hello and thank you for joining us for Travel Technology and You. Today, we’re going to speak about how travel technology can help enhance your travel insurance program.
My name is Scott Walton. I'm one of the regional sales managers at RoamRight Travel Insurance.
So who is RoamRight Travel Insurance? RoamRight Travel Insurance is owned by Arch Insurance Group. Arch is a worldwide insurance company with over 40 years of industry experience. We’re very active in USTIA; in fact our Senior Vice President of Travel, Linda Fallon, serves on their board.
We’re unique in the industry that we have both an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and A.M. Best. And for over a decade, we have underwritten and administered a variety of travel insurance programs. Several years ago, to better control customer service, claims, underwriting and technology, Arch made the business decision to enter the travel insurance market directly with RoamRight Travel Insurance.
RoamRight offers several custom plans and technology tools specifically designed for our partners like you. With all the regulation changes in the industry, it’s important to know that RoamRight is licensed in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
In the next few slides, we’re going to look at how technology impacts our lives in travel. As you can see from this slide, 86% of all US adults use the Internet. 71% of seniors 65 and over go online almost every day. 46% are on social media.
By 2017, Millennials are expected to outspend baby boomers. And this will be a little more important to you as we review the next couple of slides.
How people research travel has changed drastically over the past several years. Of those surveyed, 90% of adults aged 18 to 34, or who we referred to as “Millennials,” use the Internet to research travel compared to 96% of adults aged 35 to 54. When you look at that in comparison to how many use books, it's quite staggering. 22% of Millennials use books to research travel, whereas adults 35 to 54 only 20%.
Today, there are also multiple ways for your clients to research travel and to share their stories. It didn’t seem like that long ago that we were sending postcards or writing letters to family members and friends about travel adventures. Now, details of a person’s trip can be posted and viewed virtually in real-time through mediums like Instagram and Facebook.
Millennials and Travel agents. In a recent study by MMGY Global, 28% of Millennials used a travel agent in the past 12 months. A Millennial is described as somebody born between 1979 and 1994. This is comparison to Gen Xers at 15%. A Gen Xer is somebody who is born between '65 and '78. 13% for Baby boomers, someone born between '46 and '64, and 21% of Matures, someone born prior to 1945.
Millennials represent a population of roughly 80 million people compared to let’s say Matures who have a population of approximately 34 million. So why is this important? Going forward, Millennials are more likely to use a travel agent. 30% said they would use an agent in the next 2 years compared with 19% of Gen Xers, 16% of Baby boomers, and 27% of Matures. So, what challenges does this group of travelers represent? Well, Millennials are the most likely group to use a travel agent but they’re also the most online, text savvy, and connected generation there is. They’re often referred to as digital natives. So something that you have to ask yourself as an agency, is our youth prepared to meet their technology demands?
Using technology can be intimidating at times but it can also aid us tremendously. It can help us earn more money, save time, increase customer satisfaction, and ease the claims process. So how does this all work?
One of the things that we can do at RoamRight for you as a travel agent is to set up your own co-branded agent portal or affiliate page. And there are a couple of things here I want to point out to you, one you can see that we can include your logo for co-branding, again that'll help keep your agency logo in front of your travelers. You’ll also notice the partner code. This will be assigned to you and will help us track your commissions. So any sales through this will be credited to that partner code and we’ll know that the sale came through your portal. We also provide a toll-free number, that’s a partner-dedicated line. So if a call comes in from this number, our customer service reps recognize that the caller is working with one of our partners and they’re going to ask that caller who they're working with to make sure that you get credit for the sale. No matter how they buy our policies, whether going through your portal or by calling in, you get full credit for the sale.
Two other things I want to point out in the plans column. We'll work with you to set up the plans that you want to offer your clients. We have a lot of different plans you can choose from and your regional sales manager work with you to determine the best plans for you. And the other thing is the live chat button at the bottom right-hand corner. Again, if they call us or they chat with us online while they’re buying the policy, you get full credit for the sale.
Let’s look at how easy it is to complete a quote on your portal. You simply need to, or the traveler needs to pick their permanent address. Plug-in their travel dates, departure and return date, fill in their trip cost. So, in this case we’ll use a trip cost of $1500, that’s the cost per trip. We’ll plug-in the trip deposit date because some of our benefits are tied to when the initial trip deposit date was made. We’ll put in the age of the travelers. Sorry it takes me a second here to type it. And then we’ll get a quote. And it’ll just take a second here to pull up. And you’ll see that they can read about the plan, they can buy it now, if they scroll down, they can see the included benefits. It’s that simple. They buy the policy and again you’ll get full credit for the sale and you can see here we also have several available upgrades. Again, upgrades are tied to the trip deposit date. So it’s important that that information is included in the quote.
As your partner, we’re always looking for ways to increase your commission. Once you quote a client, you own that quote. Most agents and the agencies don’t have the resources or the time to continue to follow up after that initial insurance quote. So we’ve developed a series of emails are what we call abandon quote emails for our partners. These emails are automated and go out into three different stages. The first one is shortly after getting the travel insurance quote. The second email is going to be sent out before the end of their 21 day window. And then the last email, we’re going to send out is a week before departure date to offer post departure only product. We’re also in the process of developing upgrade emails to advise people of upgrade options such as CFAR, and that’s going to be coming out here in the next couple of months.
The other thing that we want to do is to make sure that you earn residual sales. So once that quote is made, again if they purchase at a later date, you’re going to get credit for that. The other thing is that you’re going to own that client. So let’s say they purchased from you and six months later they decide they want to go on another trip and they come directly to RoamRight to buy that insurance. Well, they're going to be coded in our system as belonging to you as the agent who brought us that client. So you’re going to get full commission again for the sale if they come to us directly and don’t go through you to buy travel insurance. So everyone’s bought their insurance, they’re ready to go on their trip. We have a short video that we'd like to play for you about our mobile app.
Julie: The further away from home you travel, the harder it is to deal with any situations that might arise. The truth is there are a lot of potential pitfalls waiting out there for you and your wallet, if you’re unprepared. And that’s why RoamRight is so great. RoamRight offers the best in travel insurance policies as well as 24/7 access to a friendly RoamRight representative who can help with any of your travel needs. Best of all, our free mobile app will let you take your RoamRight policy with you wherever you go. Potential trouble brewing at your destination? RoamRight sends you up-to-the-minute location specific travel alerts. Lost your passport while traveling internationally? No worries. You’ve loaded a digital backup right on your RoamRight app. Sick or injured while on the road, not only does your RoamRight policy provide you with health coverage anywhere in the world, but the app will even translate your medical needs into seven different languages. And if the unexpected should happen, tracking your claim is simple and painless. Feel safe and secure before, during and after your trip. Knowing that no matter where you are and no matter what happens, RoamRight and the free RoamRight mobile app have you covered. Visit roamright.com/app to find out more. RoamRight: Venture Farther. Travel Smarter.
Scott: As the video mentioned, RoamRight offers a free mobile app that is available to all of our policyholders. Here is a sample of the home screen. And what you’ll notice first is that there are nine what we call tiles, and we’ll go through the features and functions of each of these tiles here in a few minutes.
At the top of the mobile app is a scrolling yellow ticker symbol. And this represents all open travel alerts that you have for destinations saved in the destinations folder. The other thing you’ll notice is the yellow circle on the travel alerts with the number 15 in it. Again, this represents that you have 15 open travel alerts for the destinations that you have saved in the destinations folder.
The first thing that we’re going to look at is the My policies feature. Here you’ll see that it lists your travel dates, as well as your RoamRight ID number, the plan that you’ve purchased and the destinations that you’ll be traveling to. By clicking on the policy, you can see that it lays out the benefits and the limits of your policy. When you buy a RoamRight policy, you’re going to receive several things including an ID card, a confirmation of benefits. If you happen to misplace your ID card, you can simply get another copy through the mobile app on here. Again it’s going to provide your RoamRight ID number, the travel dates, the product that you selected, but more importantly, it’s going to list the information on how to get in touch with our 24 hour emergency response center, as well as our customer service department. Again, you’re going to get a confirmation of benefits when you buy the policy, but if you’ve misplaced it, you can get another copy here. Again that information is going to be available to you to either download and print out or to view on the mobile app. And then also if there are any claims that are assigned to a policy, you can get that information here.
The next thing that we're going to look at is the buy a policy section. This is just like buying a policy through the website. You’re going to plug-in your pertinent information, like your state of residency, what you’re looking for coverage for, as well as the departure and return dates, your trip cost and then you can also purchase any upgrades through here as well. When you buy a policy, that information is then going to be automatically stored in your My policy section of the mobile app. The My destination section includes information on all the current destinations that you have a trip planned for. You’ll notice that again some of your destinations like Egypt and France and Kenya have the yellow circle with the number in it indicating that there are travel alerts for those destinations. You’ll also notice at the bottom of the screen that there are two, or in this case, one red dot but that there’s two dots in general meaning that you have two pages of destinations stored. So let’s go ahead and select Egypt. The first thing you’re going to notice at the top is the threat level for Egypt, and we’ll talk a little more about what makes up that threat level here in a few minutes, but you can see that Egypt is in the orange red area which means that it does have a heightened security level for the country. You’ll also notice that there are several different intelligent features that you can pull up, everything from terrorism, crime, security.
What we get asked for a lot is what the hospitals are like in a certain area. So we’ll go ahead and pull that up here and you’ll notice that it’s going to provide a summary of the level of care in Egypt. It’s also going to list any hospitals that our assistance provider has credential. It’s going to have the phone number there as well as an email or a website if that is available. It’s also going to provide pharmacy information as well as what the ambulance services are like in the country and how to get in touch with them.
The travel alerts section again is going to provide all relevant travel alerts for destinations that you have saved in the destinations folder. It’s also going to provide any alerts that are within 100 miles of your current location. So the mobile app is going to recognize where you currently are located. And if there’s any alerts again within 100 miles of that location, you’re going to get an alert for that as well. The alert map. You can see here that it’s recognizing your location. And in this case, there is an open alert within Baltimore, which is less than 100 miles from your current location, so it’s going to list that. By pinching the screen, it’ll show you all alerts within Maryland, in this case, and then certainly anywhere within the United States and you can keep scrolling in and it’s going to provide you alerts for pretty much the entire world. You’ll notice that the alerts are color-coded for their severity. We’ll go ahead and click on a red one which is a very severe situation and it’s going to provide you with just a quick snapshot of what that alert is. And if you want more information, you can scroll into the alert and read up on it. You can see here that it’s quite comprehensive and this information is provided by our security partner, iJet, and is in real time.
Okay continuing on. You’re also going to notice that there are risk ratings for all different countries. Again, scrolling to Egypt and we saw that earlier, but we’ll take another look at it. But you’re going to notice that there are multiple indicators that make up the overall threat rating for a country, everything from the geopolitical situation, crime, security service, civil unrest, terrorism and kidnapping. Again, all of those rankings make up the overall threat rating is for this particular country.
Okay the other thing that you can do is store travel documents and we highly recommend that you store copies of your passport as well as any other information that you may want to store like immunization information, emergency contact information or if there is any allergies that you may have. This information is great if you’re in emergency and you need to show the doctor or if you’ve lost your passport and makes getting the passport filled up much quicker.
Translation services. We have free translation services in seven different languages and from multiple different categories. You can see here the extensive list of categories that you can translate information into. So we’ll have a pull up your questions that a doctor may ask and then again here you can see all the different languages.
Again, there are seven different languages. We’ll go ahead and select Spanish. So you’ll notice that the first thing on a scale of 1 to 10 how much does it hurt, it's going translate that from English into Spanish and then on the right hand side of the screen, you’ll also notice that there is a triangle that you can click and it will actually play in Spanish the translation of on a scale of 1 to 10 how much does it hurt. And this is great, so it not only can you point to it for the doctor or the nurse but you can also play it for them.
And the next thing we’re going to look at is drug equivalencies. You’re traveling, you’ve lost the medication and you don’t know what it is in that country. So let’s go ahead and look a - let’s pull up Advil here. I know you're here somewhere Advil. I’ve seen you before. You can see it’s quite comprehensive. So we’re going to scroll down here to Advil, we’ll click on that. And we want to know what Advil is again in Egypt. You can either type it in or you can scroll down. Hit done and you’ll notice all the equivalents for Advil that you can find in Egypt.
The last things that we’re going to look at, if you need to get in touch with our customer service department, you can touch the telephone number under the call or you can email. You can also do that for our claims department or if you need travel assistance. Again, it’s very quick here. You can call our emergency response center directly from here. And then again, if you want to buy a policy that can be done through the site.
There are several ways that RoamRight is set up to help your clients. They can call our general 800-number and seek assistance or as we’ve mentioned before, if they go in through one of your portals. There is going to be the 800-number that our customer service reps are going to recognize as a partner account. And again, they’re going to ask who the client is working with to make sure that you as a RoamRight partner get credit for that sale. As I’ve mentioned before, no matter how they buy a policy, you get full credit for that sale, both on your portal and through the general RoamRight website.
We have the live chat function. So maybe if they're on your site and they're working on a quote and they have questions about benefit limits and they don’t want to stop from getting their quote and they want to get answers, they can do a live chat, get the information right there and continue on to the buying process.
Another great tool that we have available and other way that we can help your clients is through the My account section on our website. Your clients would simply use the same policy information they used to open the mobile app. In the My account section, they can store information like their address, they can also view past orders, claims information and policies.
What’s nice about this is if they go to purchase a policy in the future, they don’t have to input all that information again. We do not store any credit card information in here so they do not have to worry about that. The other thing that they can do is open a claim online. It’s a paperless claim function. They can upload all the important documents that they need for the claim as well as their claim form. At RoamRight we want to make sure that when somebody opens a claim that they stay informed on the claims process. So we’re going to send out a series of emails. The first one is going to let the client know that the claim has been received and it’s being worked on. Throughout the claims process, if maybe one of our claims managers needs additional information, they are going to request that and when a client sends in that information, we’re going to send another email out letting them know that it has been received and that it’s now part of the current claim. And then lastly, we’re going to send an update on the status of the claim once it has been closed.
We’ve talked a lot about technology today, but at RoamRight we're more than just technology. When somebody does open a claim, they’re going to be assigned a personal claims manager who’s dedicated to the case. It’s someone who knows all aspects of the case and can walk the client through the entire claims process from start to finish.
We want to thank you for attending today’s presentation and we hope you’ll become a RoamRight partner. Thank you very much.