By Cara Morton, Cover-More Group CEO

We’re a connected society with easy access to our world from the palm of our hands.

For travellers, this access is important in every stage of a journey; from researching and planning a trip, buying travel insurance, and booking accommodation, transport and experiences, to finding a seat in a restaurant or bar and checking up-to-date flight details for the trip home.

For Cover-More Group, ensuring our travellers stay connected is a key component of our service offerings and, as the world satisfies its appetite for travel, it’s more vital than ever.

I had the opportunity to discuss how we use digital innovation to interact with our customers, highlight our travel assistance and Freely apps and look at how we personalise travellers’ experiences as a keynote speaker at the recent Future of Insurance conference in Sydney.

My topic, ‘The new era of Digital Customer Experience: The Enhancement of Customer Journey’, looked at how we have evolved our offerings to meet changing expectations, and how our innovations provide customised, personalised experiences for our travellers from the moment they book to returning home.

Customer experience in a new era

Looking at digital, we know where a customer is going and for how long, roughly how much they are paying for their trip, how old they are, what medical conditions they may have, if they are travelling with kids, if they are going on a cruise, and even other activities they may be planning.

Innovation has enhanced this knowledge and now, through our digital apps and analytics, we’re connected 24/7, so we also know where travellers are in real-time, how they’re getting from point A-to-B, and so much more; all with their permission, of course.

This data is all vital to personalising customers’ experience of travel insurance and the high-value services we can provide, beyond the insurance product itself – before, during and after their trip.

From the traveller’s perspective, they can pack their bags, set off and enjoy their trip, knowing if things do go wrong, contacting us is the least of their worries.

We know where our travellers are from geo-location, and we can send proactive alerts to keep them safe and informed. And, in a time of need, click-to-call via our assistance app connects travellers to one of our sophisticated global command centres and our team of medical and security professionals. No rummaging around for contact details, or losing those details if belongings have been lost or stolen.

Advancing tech to meet changing needs

COVID-19 clearly impacted travel and our business, and it also forced us to innovate much faster than we imagined we could. We knew we had to be ready with a transformed customer experience to meet elevated expectations for when global travel resumed.

People are looking for much more from their insurance now, and our research tells us that will only continue in future. We have two apps that meet this elevated expectation.

Cover-More’s travel assistance app for leisure travellers, available in Australia and the US, lets us share information with, and proactively contact, our customers, especially if we know they are in high-risk situations, for example, significant events such as earthquakes and tsunamis.

Meanwhile our Cover-More-backed travel insurance and safety app Freely gives customers access to a customisable, on-the-go insurance offering. The easy-to-use app allows travellers to purchase and adjust cover; connect with health professionals; log a claim and access 24/7 live chat support.

The beauty of the technology we are using with Freely is in the timing – imagine being able to take out insurance at the touch of a button if you decide spur of the moment to jump on a moped in Bali.

Cara Morton, Cover-More Group CEO

Behind the scenes, Sentiance, the safety-tracking technology in the Freely app, essentially turns motion into insights. Used by the likes of Uber to track driver safety, it can sense whether you are on a bus, in a car, a bicycle, or a moped.

The potential for this technology also extends to Cover-More’s partners, with the ability to embed it into their digital experiences.

Investing in the future

Investment in innovation and first-to-market technology is equal parts exciting and challenging, and involves a shift in traditional thinking.

Companies must be willing to accept some setbacks before perfecting the customer experience they’re aiming for. Even the way results are measured and reported on is a departure from the norm, so it’s a challenging yet exciting process.

We’re just at the start of this journey and it’s exciting to explore the application of this technology to create a safer travel experience for all of our travellers.