Dubai: Consumers in the UAE should look at buying a travel and home insurance to take care of exorbitant medical costs while travelling or save any additional unbudgeted expenditure on leaking air conditioners or even fire.
Currently, only 6 per cent of the residents in the UAE have a home insurance, while only 10 per cent opt for a travel insurance, Brain Rielly, chief executive of Zurich Insurance Middle East, told Gulf News.
“We don’t suffer any major catastrophes like earthquakes or floods but rest assured there are a lot of instances, where there are water damage and fires or theft although on a much lower scale. So we try to educate customers in this regard,” Rielly said.
For an example, in the UAE, most of the ladies hand bags are Louis Vuitton, they have an iPhone or an expensive iPad, they have diamonds. So if it is lost damaged or stolen if they have no insurance, they would carry out the loss themselves, he said.
“It really about educating the public and making them realise that this is a very safe environment compared to London things do happen, and all the more reason they should buy insurance. And also it is so cheap. We are not talking a lot of money for a policy,” Rielly said.
On an average, for a family home insurance it would cost around Dh1,200 per annum. Travel insurance could cost around Dh50-500 depending to place they are travelling to.
The company has seen a claims ratio of less than 30 per cent for travel insurance. The company has also seen a claims ratio of 48 per cent for home insurance in Dubai. For motor insurance, it is 62-78 per cent.
Travel and home insurance contribute to less than 30 per cent of Zurich Insurance Middle East books, while the remaining 70 per cent comes from motor insurance.
“I would love to have more of home insurance than car insurance. I’ll be much happier if this ratio is 50:50,” said Rielly. “It would be more profitable margin wise than motor insurance.”
Zurich Insurance is Switzerland’s biggest insurer and is present in 170 countries across the globe. The company had an operating profit of $4.7 billion as at December 2013.
Win air miles:
The company has also tied up with Air Miles for the benefit of the customers buying Zurich’s various products.
The proposition is that any Zurich Insurance customer takes out a travel, home or motor insurance policy will win 1 air mile every dirham that they spend on the policy.
“We are actively trying to promote their ability to earn across all of their spend categories so be it grocery, electronic, clothing etc,” Paul Lacey, managing director of Air Miles told Gulf News.
Air Miles has a tie up with about 120 different brands in the program in hospitality, food and beverages, and now insurance. Clients can redeem the air miles via different channels like online, or stores with some the company’s partners. Travel, in store redemption has been very popular with the customers.
“It’s a win-win for customer trust because it increases the loyalty to Zurich. It’s a perfect combination where everybody wins especially the customer wins as we give something back to the customer. We are very keen in differentiating ourselves,” Rielly said.
