“Not only is it incredibly disruptive for the airlines and global air infrastructure, it’s also a nightmare for consumers because they’re not where they want to be,” said Carl Carter (pictured), chief commercial officer for Blink Parametric, an Ireland-based tech firm providing parametric services to travel insurers worldwide.
“It’s very emotional. They’re travelling to see friends and family are peak time. People have spent a lot of money to travel. On top of that, if they’re stranded somewhere, then they have additional costs,” Carter said.
“Beyond the period of disruption, there is also a global knock-on effect because those planes are meant to be somewhere else, which impacts schedules around the world.”
It was at this moment I became massively grateful my brother gave me an AirTag for Christmas.
Confusion. Frustration. Quite the scene at Pearson as hundreds of passengers search for luggage.
Still waiting for mine. But it’s close. pic.twitter.com/0aprqOeqD5
— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) December 27, 2022
Blink Parametric said it has served 60,000 US and Canadian travellers during the recent travel peak period. The firm, one of Insurance Business’ 5-star insurance technology providers in 2022, enables a pre-defined amount of coverage with automatic payout across its travel, luggage, and cyber products.
Is parametric insurance a gamechanger for travel?
The spike in travel and luggage delay claims during the peak period has the potential to cause immense overhead and operation burdens in claims processing for traditional insurance companies. The surge could inundate already-swamped staff who also need to manage other high-value claims in the business.
“Add to that the disruption to your call centres, which get incredibly busy – wait times add up, customer frustration and upset mount,” said Carter, who is familiar with these overwhelm scenarios having worked with a global travel insurance claims and emergency