Who pays a claim?

Across the Travel Insurance Compared website you will notice we pay a lot of attention to the underwriters of the insurance companies we examine. It’s important to know who the underwriter of your travel insurance policy might be for one simple reason:

If you ever need to make a claim, the underwriters will foot the bill.

Travel Insurance is about minimising risk for the customer and the insurer. Triple checking the bungee cord before you risk life and limb by jumping from “The Ledge” in Queenstown is a simple way to minimise physical risk. Travel Insurance providers also take risks, but the chances they take are financial rather than physical. Underwriters are the bearers of that risk.

The underwriters of travel insurance policies take very educated risks on the number of claims made against that policy. To insure themselves for taking this risk, they take a large percentage of each travel insurance policy sold by the insurer.

How do I know if my underwriter is financially stable?

So now that you know who the underwriter is, how can you assess their financial stability? One simple method is to check their credit rating. Most respectable underwriters will display their credit rating on their website. If this is not available, the major credit rating institutions such as Standards and Poors (www.standardandpoors.com), Moody’s (www.moodys.com) and A.M. Best (www.ambest.com) display this information publicly.

Who are the major underwriters in the travel insurance industry?

There are several major players in the underwriting travel insurance across the world. These include (in alphabetical order:

• Allianz
• AIG
• Lloyds
• QBE
• Vero

Save time. We have done it for you.

To save you time, we have checked the financial standing of each underwriter for you. Check out the review at a glance on the right hand side of every review for more details.

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