Allianz Partners announced the Metaportal on 28 September, a digital platform through which banks and loyalty programs, such as frequent flyer schemes, deliver travel insurance. Cardholders manage it online and its defining feature is that the partner, for example the bank, decides how much cover is included before the cardholder is asked to pay for anything. It arrives as the big four scale back complimentary travel cover on a range of cards, following the Reserve Bank of Australia's October 1 cut to the interchange fee cap that has historically funded card benefits.
"This level of cover, the complementary cover, can be set anywhere between 0% and 100%," said Damien Arthur (pictured), executive head of travel at Allianz Partners Australia.
Arthur said partners can adapt the complementary offer to suit individual customer segments and across product ranges, tailoring it so an organisation can match its own acquisition and retention strategy. The company's release describes the same mechanism as a configurable framework giving partners control over included benefits, cover structure and what it terms generosity across customer groups.
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So the question of what a card covers stops being a question about the card. It becomes a question about which segment the holder sits in and that is a setting the partner controls and can change.
Asked how large the bank-partnered book is, Arthur said the segment ebbs and flows and that Allianz Partners works with quite a few of the major banks. On a market scale he put it at about 10 to 15 per cent of the overarching market, depending on the year and the banking partner in question.
If terms vary by configuration, the obvious question is who explains the configuration. When asked how much of the current contraction in card cover reflects regulation and how much reflects the economics of the cover itself, Arthur declined to characterise it.
"Each bank has its own strategy when it comes to complementary cover and ultimately I've got to leave it to the banks to comment on that," he said.
Asked what happens to cardholders who have relied on directors' card cover for work travel, he gave a similar answer. He confirmed that October 1 is when some changes came into play but said he would have to leave it to the banks to comment on their plans, noting that they have their own strategies.
Allianz is already the underwriter behind much of this cover. Insurance Business reported in July that product disclosure statements for ANZ, Westpac, NAB, HSBC and Bank of Melbourne name Allianz Australia Insurance as the underwriter of their complimentary travel insurance, issued through AWP Australia trading as Allianz Global Assistance.
Arthur's position is consistent, since the coverage decisions are the banks' to make.
Asked whether reduced cover plus optional upgrades risks producing declined claims from customers who did not realise what they had lost, he said the Metaportal improves the engagement process where some banks are choosing to change coverage types. The new step asks customers to activate and confirm that the coverage being offered suits their needs, with additional coverages available in the same portal if it does not. Activation of complementary cover has been in the market for some years, he said, and is something Allianz Partners pioneered and launched to market.
That places the moment of discovery at the point of travel, with the customer reading a screen and deciding whether what a partner has configured for their segment is enough.
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The platform's intended audience does not include intermediaries. "So I'd say it's particularly useful for organisations with large customer bases that really want that integrated, seamless digital experience," Arthur said. Asked directly whether there was anything in it for brokers or whether it was direct only, he described the product set rather than a use case, noting the platform carries travel insurance and travel-related services and has also been built for other assistance products including roadside assistance and emergency home assistance.
One further consequence of the activation model is informational. "Because customers are activating, we know when they're travelling and we also know where they're travelling," Arthur said. He cited the disaster in Nepal, where he said Allianz Partners was able to proactively reach out to customers it knew were in the region.
A card product whose complimentary component can be set anywhere between nothing and everything, segment by segment, is a product whose terms have to be read rather than assumed. For brokers assessing a client's travel exposure, the card in their wallet is no longer a reliable indicator of what they hold.
