

by | 4 minute read

A new sur­vey con­duct­ed by trav­el insur­ance com­par­i­son site Trav​elIn​sur​ance​.com found that even though trav­el­ers are con­cerned with trav­el dis­rup­tions and many have expe­ri­enced mishaps while on vaca­tion, few­er than half of those sur­veyed have pur­chased trav­el insur­ance. Of those who didn't pur­chase trav­el insur­ance, only a third even con­sid­ered it.

"The results from the sur­vey show a clear dis­con­nect; respon­dents have real con­cerns about trav­el inter­rup­tions and have expe­ri­enced them first-hand, yet they do not con­sid­er the many ben­e­fits of trav­el insur­ance," said Stan Sand­berg, co-founder of Trav​elIn​sur​ance​.com. "Our sur­vey revealed that the most com­mon rea­sons why trav­el­ers dis­re­gard trav­el insur­ance are: they believe it's too expen­sive; they don't under­stand the cov­er­age or the rules of pur­chas­ing it; and they believe they just don't need it."

Domes­tic Trav­el­ers could be moti­vat­ed to do some research on the sub­ject if they thought it worth­while. Accord­ing to Audi­enceS­CAN, with­in the last six months, 65.2% of these con­sumers have used a search engine to research a prod­uct or ser­vice they were con­sid­er­ing for pur­chase (most like­ly on Google, the pre­ferred search engine of 88.8% of this group). Make sure the results you want seen are on the first page; this group is 10% less like­ly than oth­er adults to go past the first page of results.

Trav­el Spend

The sur­vey found that more than one in five (22%) will spend more than $5,000 on trav­el this year, with almost half (47%) spend­ing more than $2,500. Old­er trav­el­ers tend to spend the most as they typ­i­cal­ly have greater dis­pos­able incomes, take longer trips and spend more on vaca­tion trav­el than their younger coun­ter­parts.

Trav­el Con­cerns

Accord­ing to the sur­vey, the top three trav­el con­cerns for trav­el­ers were weath­er-relat­ed dis­rup­tions, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ill­ness or injury affect­ing a trip, and ter­ror­ism. These con­cerns are also the top risks addressed by most trav­el insur­ance plans.

The sur­vey fur­ther drilled down into trav­el­ers' con­cerns about the weath­er. More than three quar­ters of respon­dents (78%) indi­cat­ed that they're at least think­ing about the weath­er at their arrival des­ti­na­tion when book­ing a trip. How­ev­er, more than half (52%) said they rarely or nev­er take into con­sid­er­a­tion the weath­er in their depar­ture city when book­ing a trip.

Trav­el insur­ance with trip can­cel­la­tion cov­er­age is one of the most effec­tive ways to pro­tect an invest­ment in non-refund­able vaca­tions year-round, but it can be espe­cial­ly impor­tant dur­ing the increas­ing­ly active hur­ri­cane sea­son and dur­ing win­ter months when storms are more like­ly. These both coin­cide with some of the busiest leisure trav­el months of the year.

Trav­el Inter­rup­tions

While many vaca­tions go smooth­ly, sur­vey results point to ram­pant delays. Three out of four respon­dents (76%) have expe­ri­enced a flight delay in the past, and near­ly half (48%) have had their lug­gage lost or stolen. Anoth­er third (35%) have expe­ri­enced either get­ting sick or trav­el­ing with some­one who has got­ten sick while on a trip.

Flight was delayed76%
Luggage/personal belong­ings were delayed or lost48%
Flight was can­celled 40%
You need­ed to change/cancel your plans due to per­son­al rea­sons 35%
You or some­one in your par­ty got sick or injured dur­ing the trip35%
You missed your con­nec­tion31%
You are some­one in your par­ty got sick or injured before the trip17%
You need­ed to change/cancel your plans due to work-relat­ed rea­sons14%
You need­ed trav­el assis­tance (i.e., you need­ed a last-minute change, car rental, hotel accom­mo­da­tions, or you need­ed help with trav­el in a coun­try where you don't speak the lan­guage, etc.) 14%
Luggage/personal belong­ings were stolen6%

Trav­el Insur­ance

Most con­sumers are wor­ried about trav­el dis­rup­tions, and most have expe­ri­enced them in the past, yet more than half (54%) have nev­er pur­chased trav­el insur­ance and two thirds (65%) of those have nev­er even con­sid­ered it. The sur­vey also showed that about half (47%) of respon­dents didn't know whether or not their health insur­ance pro­vid­ed cov­er­age while trav­el­ing, espe­cial­ly when trav­el­ing abroad. Trav­el insur­ance plans can pro­vide med­ical and emer­gency evac­u­a­tion cov­er­age for inter­na­tion­al trav­el.

The rea­sons trav­el­ers don't pur­chase trav­el insur­ance show that there remains a num­ber of mis­con­cep­tions about the val­ue propo­si­tion of trav­el insur­ance and the ben­e­fits it pro­vides.

"Many peo­ple don't think they need trav­el insur­ance or that it's too expen­sive. How­ev­er, today's fre­quent trav­el dis­rup­tions and lost trav­el expens­es would sug­gest oth­er­wise," con­tin­ued Sand­berg. "Trav­el can­cel­la­tion cov­er­age can cost as lit­tle as four per­cent (4%) of a trip's total cost, which if some­thing goes wrong and you have to miss your trip, can save you thou­sands of dol­lars in the long run. Cov­er­age for emer­gency trav­el med­ical and evac­u­a­tions can cost even less."

Dig­i­tal adver­tise­ments are a great way to com­mu­ni­cate the ben­e­fits of trav­el insur­ance to Domes­tic Trav­el­ers. Accord­ing to Audi­enceS­CAN, 52.2% of this group was dri­ven to action by an email ad they received last year and 42.2% were moti­vat­ed to action by text ads or ads they saw on their mobile smart­phone apps last year. They're also 5% more like­ly to click on text link ads on web­sites. Tra­di­tion­al adver­tis­ing shouldn't be left out of your cam­paign though. Last year, 64.8% of Domes­tic Trav­el­ers were dri­ven to action by a TV com­mer­cial.

Audi­enceS­CAN data is avail­able for your appli­ca­tions and dash­boards through the Sales­Fu­el API. Media com­pa­nies and agen­cies can access Audi­enceS­CAN data through the Audi­enceS­CAN Reports in AdMall.

Rachel Cagle

Rachel Cagle

Rachel is a Research Ana­lyst, spe­cial­iz­ing in audi­ence intel­li­gence, at Sales­Fu­el. She also helps to main­tain the major accounts and co-op intel­li­gence data­bas­es. As the hold­er of a Bach­e­lors degree in Eng­lish from The Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty, Rachel helps the rest of the Sales­Fu­el team with their writ­ing needs.