A once in a lifetime event can quickly spiral into a one-way ticket to despair if disaster steps in and stops you from attending. Imagine saving up and spending $500 on a ticket for a music festival only to fall sick and miss your dream opportunity.
Now, take your imagination a step further and go beyond the despair of missing the festival to the realization you can get a full ticket refund at the click of a button and for the average price of a tall café latte from Starbucks.
That’s what live event ticket insurance company TicketGuardian is promising. The insurtech start-up burst on to the ticket insurance scene in 2016 with the aim of transforming the industry and giving it a Silicon Valley makeover.
“We wanted to disrupt the ‘non-refundable’ world that is ticketing and put the power back into the hands of the fans,” said founder and CEO Bryan Derbyshire. “TicketGuardian’s easy-to-use platform provides low cost ticket insurance coverage, bringing peace of mind to consumer, and adding value to our partners, merchants and customers.
“Today’s tech-savvy consumers value convenience over brand loyalty when it comes to financial products and services. They want everything on-demand and at the click of a button. Our tech-focused solution is attractive and convenient for digital consumers. Not only are we bringing the lowest prices for consumers, but we’re also providing proprietary technology for ticketing platforms to help them take actionable decisions based off live data.”
TicketGuardian’s standard coverage can be purchased for as little as $2.99. It covers loss derived from all sorts of unforeseen circumstances such as traffic, weather, military duty or family emergency. All the claimant has to do is produce valid evidence of the peril, which can be uploaded to an online platform.
The company also offers full attendee protection, which can be purchased by event organizers and ticketing platforms to cover every ticket to an event. Derbyshire described this solution as a “value-add differentiator” for live-event providers, while also providing “peace of mind for consumers – the people putting all of us in business”.
Insurance conversion rates in the live event ticketing space have traditionally been very low. For many, it’s simply not top-of-mind upon purchasing a ticket for an event. Before TicketGuardian entered the space in 2016, the average conversion in ticket insurance was less than 4%.
“TicketGuardian’s data-driven approach enables us to achieve up to 10 times the conversion rate of our competitors. We’re only making dimes rather than dollars off every policy, but we’re making a great deal of dimes because we’re covering more people and solving more of the problem,” Derbyshire told Insurance Business.
“Our average conversion rate of event attendees purchasing ticket insurance is just north of 32%, which is our blended rate across all tickets, whether that’s a $12 ticket to a circus or $2,500 to a major sporting play-off. We’ve drastically improved the space for consumers and we’re always tweaking and finding ways to make our conversions better.”
As the live events and experience economy continues to grow worldwide, conversion rates are likely to continue increasing, according to Derbyshire. He said TicketGuardian will continue to develop “cutting edge technology” and products to maximize upon this attractive market.
