Chubb, the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurer, has announced the development of its “Pay As You Roam” (PAYR) travel insurance proposition.
The PAYR service uses digital technology to simplify the way customers access and purchase travel insurance, Chubb said. The service uses mobile phone roaming data to identify when customers are outside their home country, activating coverage automatically at a daily premium.
PAYR will be made available through Chubb partners in the banking, fintech and telecommunications industries. To use the service, customers must register through Chubb’s core app, where they can also add the names of other travellers they would like to include.
As soon as the customer is detected as roaming, coverage is activated, and a text message or pop-up notification in the app informs them that coverage is in place. Customers have four hours from receipt of the message to either decline coverage or confirm who needs to be included for cover, if they did not do so prior to travel.
Coverage ends when the customer is detected as no longer roaming or if they reach the maximum trip duration of 31 days. Customers will receive an email or app notification at the end of each trip detailing the total premium, Chubb said. If the Chubb partner is a cell phone operator, the cost of insurance is added to the customer’s next phone bill. If the partner is a bank, the cost is added to their next bank statement.
In June 2020, Bulgaria’s leading mobile operator, Telenor, became the first telecommunications company to offer PAYR travel insurance, marketed by Telenor Bulgaria as “Smart Tourist.”
“Chubb’s Pay As You Roam travel insurance has been developed specifically to make life easier for customers and to provide a compelling proposition for our business partners,” said Rubén Rivero, Chubb’s head of travel insurance for Continental Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. “Once users sign up for the service, the process of getting travel insurance becomes very simple because everything is done automatically. Customers pay a daily rate, so they are only charged for what they use, and payment – through their mobile phone bill or direct from their bank – is also simple and secure. We believe this is genuinely innovative and disruptive technology because it fundamentally changes the way in which people buy travel insurance, and that is a clear benefit to our partners.”
