TrawellTag Cover-More has planned for extensive growth following the acquisition by Zurich Insurance Group earlier this year. Cover-More Group is now 100 per cent owned by Zurich. “The whole objective of buying Cover-More by Zurich is that it recognises the good work that Cover-More has done globally. Worldwide Cover-More is the mother brand and in each market, for example, in India it is TrawellTag Cover-More,” said Dev Karvat, CEO-Emerging Markets, Cover-More Group.
Pointing out that Zurich is one of the top three insurers in the world, Karvat said, “The most important thing for us is that we get this huge brand credibility of Zurich.
They have very large underwriting capabilities including reinsurance capabilities. If any market we would like to enter, we can re-insure anything that brings huge capabilities for us. They have robust technology systems, which we can get access to. We can access the infrastructure to accelerate our growth into the Indian market. Also there is access to capital.” Reminding that they have acquired two large businesses in the large six months – the second/third largest travel insurance provider in the US, Travelex, and Halo Insurance in the UK, which specialises in car rental insurance, Karvat remarked, “We can leverage their specialisation in car rental insurance and bring those products to India. With Zurich coming in, it gives us access to capital to continue our acquisitions across the world. We are looking at two-three interesting opportunities at the moment and will make a couple of announcements in the next two-three months.”
Cover-More’s assistance company Customer Care, and Zurich’s assistance company WTP (World Travel Protection), have been merged into an integrated entity – WTP. This will be a big advantage, a gamechanger for TrawellTag Cover-More in the Indian market, because most insurance providers in India outsource their assistance business to a third party. “WTP will take the value proposition a few notches higher. It gives us very strong proposition protecting the customer when he is overseas. We have moved beyond telling our customer that if he falls sick we will reimburse or provide cashless, our focus is to make sure that the customer while he is overseas if something goes wrong, how can we bring him back home safe, how can we ensure that the line of treatment he is getting is right. Now we call tell our customers that not only are we managing claims but have an in-house support system which can take care of the customer wherever he is,” explained Karvat.
An interesting new development is that Arsenal Football Club has announced Cover-More as its Official Travel Insurance Partner.