TravTalk India Online Magazine
Asego has completed 25 years in the industry, providing one of the strongest ancillary products to the travel trade. Dev Karvat, Founder & CEO, Asego, shares what makes them click and how they are crafting new products according to the market demand.
Nisha Verma
Asego as an ancillary product is not just looking at its own profits, but creating avenues for its travel partners to also earn money, shares Dev Karvat, Founder & CEO, Asego, with on the sidelines of the recent TAFI Convention in Vietnam.
In fact, at one of the sessions at the event, agents openly applauded Asego for the same. Speaking on how he achieves that, Karvat said, “Globally, travel insurance is among the top three ancillary revenue generators for travel agents, airlines, OTAs and DMCs. In India, we are gradually moving towards the direction where travel insurance will be the largest revenue generator for a travel agent. To do that, as a travel insurance provider we believe that you need to offer relevant products to your customers. The moment you have a relevant product offered to the customer, he is going to offer it further. Post-COVID, the customer is willing to spend money, but he wants the right product. He wants right protection and service. If that is provided, he is willing to give you a share in his wallet.”
What clicks
Responding to the praise coming Asego’s way, Karvat said, “The most important thing is to stay focused and specialised. We are celebrating 25 years of our company, and we have not changed course in between. We have not got tempted to start selling five different things. We have stayed true to what we enjoy doing. We have stayed true to what we have been committed to the travel agencies. We believe that the agent is our customer. We may be issuing policies to a lot of Bollywood personalities, or to government organisations, or to large corporations, but because we do 100 per cent of our business with the travel trade, they are our customers. In fact, our teams, totalling about 450 people across the country, have been working with most of the travel agent partners that we have worked with over so many years. Hence, we have a longstanding relationship.”
He added, “In a service industry, it is nice to get compliments from the travel trade because it’s not easy to be in a service industry and continue to do the same thing for about 25 years. Thus, we are very happy and lucky to have a great team that keeps supporting all the travel agents across the country.”
How agents earn money?
Looking at India’s insurance market, he said, “In India, only about 20-30 per cent people buy travel insurance when they go overseas, which was in single digit in 2000. We have come a long way today. We have worked closely with travel agents in educating them about the product. However, going forward, when we benchmark with any of the global peers, they are at about 85-90 per cent. Hence, we have a long way to go, and that gap of around 30-90 per cent can generate huge revenues for the travel agencies. As Asego Travel Insurance, we stay committed to creating relevant products, which will help them in converting those 40-50 per cent of the customers who are not buying today, and, in turn, will generate additional revenues for the travel agency.”
Unique products
Observing that people are taking longer flights, Asego introduced lounge access for its customers. Asego will soon be launching a new product called Chatmate. “Along with other products they buy, Chatmate will help the customer to get a lifetime global eSIM number, which they can use and top up as they go. The cost is very low compared to what they would pay to any domestic telecom provider,” he revealed.
