Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (BHTP) backed away from working with travel advisors seven years ago, opting instead to develop products and services via strategic partnerships. But now the travel insurance provider is again looking to make inroads with the trade. President Dean Sivley explains the change in strategy to Travel Weekly retail editor Jamie Biesiada.
Dean Sivley
Q: Why did BHTP stop working with the trade directly? Why are you re-engaging now?
A: When we first entered the market in 2014, we knew that it would take time to build distribution and raise awareness of our unique products and claims service. Our focus to work with strategic partners the past seven years gave us immediate, industrywide distribution of our Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Co.-underwritten travel insurance programs as well as fast, digital-first claims service.
We knew we wanted to build our business first by giving our partners and their clients the best travel insurance product in our industry, one that our partners would recognize as having unique coverage differences compared to other travel insurance offerings available. Second, BHTP is a subsidiary of BHSI [or Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance], a global insurance business built on a foundation that "claims is our product." This fundamental belief shapes everything we do.
We feel the travel industry is now far more aware of our capabilities and our products, and we are thrilled to soon engage with travel partners on a direct basis.
Q: What's your strategy with advisors?
A: Hiring [former AIG Travel Guard exec] Bob Ford as chief revenue officer was our first step to working directly with travel advisors again. With Bob on board, we are initially focused on building a better platform in 2025 for our partners. Our innovation will be ongoing, and Bob brings exceptional industry knowledge and experience to his new role helping lead our strategy and preparation to bring travel protection the BHTP way to partners nationwide.
Q: What kind of products will you offer?
A: When we entered the market in 2014, our product suite was not fully developed. We are deeply thoughtful about the products we create to meet the evolving needs of travelers. This process has a proven track record of meaningful innovations -- for example, standard-setting fixed benefits coverage in our ExactCare Extra and WaveCare plans.
We now offer a full suite of plans that are quite different in that they offer the traditional, comprehensive travel insurance coverages like most others, but we also bundle in travel inconvenience benefits that can be claimed immediately and do not require submitting receipts.
Q: What do you view as your differentiators?
A: As the industry changes and navigates the complexities of consolidations, we will bring the simplicity and the strength of the BHSI brand and balance sheet to our partners. We are building our full-service point-of-sale platform from the ground up (without the hindrance of legacy systems) expressly to make it simple for our partners to offer, administer and manage our innovative travel insurance programs. Of course, signing up with BHTP will be simple, too.
From travel insurance plan design to claims service delivery, we choose simplicity every time, with every interaction. That same philosophy will be applied to our development of our partner platforms.
More specifically, we believe we've made travel insurance easy for customers, from purchasing a policy to modifying it in real time to getting a claim reported and paid directly to their bank account fast.