TravTalk India Online Magazine
Not only will TrawellTag Cover-More benefit from Zurich’s superior IT systems, brand credibility and access to capital, but also offer a robust protection to customers, acting as a game changer for the company in the India market.
HAZEL JAIN
Specialist travel insurance company TrawellTag Cover-More has much to celebrate this festive season. When the Swiss-based Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich) bought 100 per cent stake in the Australian Cover-More Group, it not only recognised the good work that CoverMore was doing globally, it also brought direct benefits to TrawellTag Cover-More. But what Dev Karvat, CEO, Emerging Markets, TrawellTag Cover-More, wants his partners in India to focus on is the huge advantage that this development brings to their customers.
He says, “One advantage which is going to be a game changer for us specially in the Indian market is the benefit of Zurich’s strong protection arm. Most insurance providers in India outsource their assistance business to a third party. Cover-More has its own assistance company called Customer Care and Zurich also has its own assistance business called World Travel Protection (WTP). We have merged both these entities and it is now called WTP. That gives us a very, very strong proposition on protecting the customer while they are overseas. We have moved way beyond reimbursing a client or facilitating a cashless transaction. Our focus is to make sure that if the customer falls sick or needs assistance, the most important thing is how we can bring them back home safely, or treat them there, or ensure that the line of treatment they are getting is correct.”
Karvat adds that WTP as the integrated entity takes that value proposition a few notches higher for TrawellTag CoverMore. It is now not only managing claims but it has a strong in-house support system which can take care of its customers wherever they are in the world. Highlighting other advantages of this acquisition, Karvat says, “One is of course, we get this huge brand credibility of Zurich. They have very large underwriting capabilities including re-insurance. That brings huge capabilities for us. Secondly, they have some robust technology systems which we get access to. We can just pick any system we want – whether it is a policy issuance system or the back-end system, or servers. We can use their entire IT infrastructure to accelerate our growth in the Indian market as well as the other markets that we are present at. The third aspect we can leverage is the access to capital where we can continue our acquisitions across the world. We are looking at two very interesting opportunities at the moment.”
