Global market for travel insurance, assistance forecast to grow to US$18.1 billion by 2017: Finaccord

The global market for stand-alone travel insurance and assistance continues to grow, expected to reach US$18.1 billion by 2017, but new and emerging markets are driving the expansion, note new figures from Finaccord.

The global market for stand-alone travel insurance and assistance (excluding policies linked to credit cards and bank accounts) was worth approximately US$13.8 billion in 2013 and is expected to grow to US$18.1 billion by 2017, notes a statement from Finaccord, a market research, publishing and consulting company specializing in financial services. 

That said, Finaccord reports that many of the world’s largest and most established travel insurance markets, including a number of European examples and the United States, are either stalling or declining.

Some of the best “opportunities for strong and sustained growth are to be found in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, where consumer awareness is often low and where the competitive landscape can be fierce,” says Simon Tottman, a consultant at Finaccord.

Extensive primary research across more than 40 individual countries calculates that in 2013, gross written premiums from travel insurance and assistance policies sold on a stand-alone basis were divided regionally as follows: the Americas, 34.6%; Europe, 33.2%; Asia-Pacific, 29.7%; and Africa and the Middle East, 2.5%.

In 2013, the U.S. continued to be the world’s largest travel insurance and assistance market in terms of gross written premiums from stand-alone policy sales in 2013, followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia. These top five markets accounted for almost half of all global premiums, although by 2017, “China will certainly have surpassed Australia in this ranking, and Finaccord also expects the Chinese market to be on a par with those of Japan and the U.K. by that time,” the statement adds.

In terms of forecast growth in premiums, Saudi Arabia is expected to grow approximately 20% per annum in real terms over the next few years; China, 17%; Turkey, 13%; Indonesia, 12%; and Argentina, 12%.