OREANDA-NEWS. February 13, 2012. 1.77 Mio Russians went for vacation with ROSNO’s travel insurance policies in 2011. This figure is 11% lower than in 2010 as being the largest insurance operator on the tourist market, the company intentionally gave up partnership with selected tourist operators in mass tourism areas, reported the press-centre of ROSNO.

The number of people insured by ROSNO under travel policies amounted to 1,770,744 in 2011, while this number was 1,991,442 in 2010 and –2,414,513 in 2010.

Since 2009 the company has been diversifying its portfolio and reducing the number of tourist operators with whom it was cooperating in the most popular tourist areas. This was primarily true for the most popular tourist area, which is Turkey. The reason was the dumping on the side of tourist operators as far as the price of the tourist package was concerned, which caused the demand for inadequate tariffs and minimal insurance coverage of medical and medical transportation expenses and unwillingness to increase it. Thanks to planned cleaning of the portfolio and shifting to other market segments, LR in this line of insurance went down by nearly 20% alongside with GPC increase by 16% (premium collected in 2011 amounted to RUR 446 Mio as compared to RUR 384 Mio in 2010). Claims paid in 2011 went down to RUR 180 (they were nearly RUR 218 Mio in 2010 and RUR 290 in 2009).

Several reasons forced Russians to change their preferences in choosing vacation areas in 2011. In particular, they abandoned trips to North Africa and the Middle East due to negative political trends in those regions and paid attentions to the Dominican Republic, Cuba, India and the Maldives. Those areas have not become mass tourist areas yet due to their relatively high costs, but the demand for them has increased considerably.

It has to be noted that Top 10 countries in claim volumes (based on the ROSNO portfolio) changed in 2011 as compared to 2010. Russia climbed from the 10th to the 6th position, as many of our fellow countrymen preferred it to traveling to Egypt and Tunisia in 2011. By the way, Egypt is no longer in Top 10 as far as the number of insured events is concerned (it ranked 2nd after Turkey in 2010). The highest number of insured events and the highest claims volume are still attributed to the most popular tourist area, which is Turkey.

Another trend of last year is the record number of publicized insured events that occurred with our citizens abroad. Such events resulted in escalation of public attention, were covered in the media and made it necessary to speak about changes in the travel insurance system on various levels.

Svetlana Shvab, Director of the Travel Insurance Department of OJSC IC Allianz (before December 13, 2011 – OJSC IC ROSNO) commented on 2011 results, ”Dramatic situations of the past few years, such as the mass poisoning of Russians with low-quality alcohol in Turkey’s Bodrum or the dreadful car crash that killed 12 people and seriously injured another 25 in May 2010 showed that the minimal insured amount of USD 15,000 is not enough to cover complicated cases that require long stays in inpatient facilities, expensive operations or medical evacuations to the home country.

Regardless of selfless efforts of Turkish doctors we needed active support of the Turkish Healthcare Ministry and provision of airplanes for urgent evacuation of two Russian women in extremely grave condition from Bodrum to the Antaliya State University and transportation of another 10 affected persons.

The people injured in the May 25, 2010 vehicle accident near Aksu had insurance of expenses for legal aid provision in addition to insurance of medical and medical transportation expenses. This allowed our provider’s Turkish partners to gain compensations from the Turkish insurance company. The overall amount of compensation paid to relatives of the deceased and affected tourists made TRL 2, 805,000 (about USD 1,935,000). Work is still underway to gain compensations for other affected persons.

In such situations, assistance is also provided by Russian authorities, who provide sanitary aviation for delivery of affected persons to their home country at the expense of the state budget.
Unfortunately, such accidents as mass intoxications and MVAs, happen rather often during vacation. This made us reconsider the portfolio and approaches to choosing partners among touring operators. As a result we intentionally abandoned cooperation with operators which demand travel insurance policies with minimal risks and minimal coverage for their tourists.

However, in general, the situation remains complicated. We do our best to explain to the consumers, including through mass media, that it is time to change the attitude towards insurance in tourism and, in particular, towards choosing the insurance coverage as far as its amount and included risks are concerned.

Highly publicized insured events made interested agencies and organizations such as the All-Russian Insurers Union, Russian Tourism Agency and Public Chamber of the RF State Duma, as well as the Finance Ministry, join the discussion of this pressing issue. We believe that amendments to legislation on tourist activity basics made by All-Russian Insurers Union members can provide our citizens abroad with insurance cover of a higher qualitative level corresponding to up-to-date international experience.