More people are flying – is that good for travel insurance profits?

Business and leisure travel is on a post-pandemic rise, but major flight delays and cancellations will have impacts on travel insurers’ credit profiles, said a commentary from credit-rating agency DBRS Morningstar.

Even though airplane travel remains below 2019 levels, staff shortages, strikes and labour actions, increased operational requirements, baggage losses and fleet reductions will see travel insurers operating at a combined ratio of more than 100%. 

“With many airlines and airports around the world facing extremely high levels of flight cancellations and delays in recent months, we expect that the travel insurance industry will experience combined ratios over 100% due to the increase in insurance losses, making this business line unprofitable for most insurance companies in 2022,” said Marcos Alvarez, senior vice president and global head of insurance at DBRS Morningstar.  

Travel insurance most often covers, among other things, trip cancellation, trip interruption, travel delay, baggage or damage loss, medical evacuation and repatriation, rental car collision damage and legal expenses. 

“Even if airlines manage to accommodate passengers with cancelled flights at a different time or fully refund the ticket cost, travel insurance policies are likely to be triggered,” said DBRS’ commentary.

“In such cases, many policyholders will claim under their trip cancellation or trip interruption coverages any related nonrefundable travel costs such as connecting flights with a different airline, as well as prepaid hotels and car rentals.” 

Canada’s largest airline, Air Canada, announced it would cancel more than 9,500 flights over July and August — accounting for approximately 15% of its scheduled flights over the summer months. 

The jump in claims and the collapse of global travel that insurers experienced amid the pandemic will “compound the problems” of the current, ongoing strain of flight delays and cancellations. 

However, despite “substantial” travel insurance losses, the financial strength of insurance companies should remain manageable thanks to insurers’ diverse portfolios, DBRS Morningstar predicted.  

“Most travel insurance is underwritten by large insurance companies with solid product and geographic diversification, which mitigates the risk of failure due to abnormally high travel insurance losses in a given year,” said the commentary.

“For most of the largest travel insurance providers, travel insurance typically accounts for less than 5% of their total gross premiums written.” 

But given the expected losses, the hard market will lead to more expensive travel insurance in the short term.  

DBRS Morningstar also suggests travel insurers could stop providing trip interruption and cancellation coverages, instead focusing on medical coverage, although “such a strategy will be only a temporary restriction as airline and airport performance improves over the upcoming months. 

“However, some insurance companies could exit or substantially decrease their exposure to the travel insurance business, given the volatility in profitability since the beginning of the pandemic,” the commentary said.  

 Feature image by iStock.com/da-kuk