STEVENS POINT, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A resounding 65 percent of Millennials said they plan to purchase travel insurance more frequently in 2018 while only 7 percent of Boomers said they plan to buy more frequently, according to Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection’s (BHTP) State of Travel Insurance report released today.
Younger travelers (ages 25 to 44) indicated their purchases of travel insurance are up significantly, with 56 percent of Millennial travelers stating they purchased more travel insurance in 2017 than they did in 2016 (35 percent). For Boomers, 43 percent of travelers ages 55 to 74 said they bought less travel insurance in 2017 compared to 2016 (5 percent), and the shift in consumers’ buying behavior seems likely to continue.
“This is our third year of conducting the State of Travel Insurance research, but this is the first time we’ve seen a noticeable shift in the purchase intents between older and young travelers,” said Dean Sivley, president of BHTP. “The full report reveals that the person long considered to be the typical travel insurance buyer, the 55-to-74-year-old Boomer, is purchasing less due to a desire to travel less frequently, which obviously reduces the need for travel insurance. Conversely, Millennial travelers are planning to buy at a much higher rate in 2018 because they state they better understand travel insurance benefits.”
Not only are different travelers buying travel insurance, but they’re buying it in different ways according to State of Travel Insurance. Younger travelers increasingly use comparison sites (46 percent of younger travelers vs. 14 percent of older travelers), read online reviews (46 percent vs. 10 percent) and talk to friends (32 percent vs. 17 percent) when they make their travel insurance buying decisions.
Other interesting points from the research include:
- While all types of travelers say they plan to take more road trips in 2018, road trips are especially popular with Boomers.
- All types of travel are popular with 25-to-44-year-old travelers, including cruises – validating cruise lines’ efforts to reach younger cruisers.
- Travel tech is important to younger travelers. 60 percent said they like having the latest travel tech, 41 percent say they have live-streamed their travels, and 17 percent have used a drone to document their travels.
BHTP’s State of Travel Insurance research has been conducted each fall since 2015 using independent national panels surveying consumers and travel agents on travel habits and future expectations in travel insurance and travel. The survey provides insights on not only travel insurance purchase trends, but also 2018 travel expectations BHTP’s State of Travel Insurance 2018 is available for download at http://go.bhtp.com/SOTI2018/.
About the State of Travel Insurance
The State of
Travel Insurance includes responses from 1,785 travelers and 265
travel professionals about their travel habits, their travel business,
their experiences in 2017 and/or their expectations for 2018. The
confidence levels in both surveys are sufficient to draw large-scale
conclusions from the results. Sources consulted in preparing this report
included Department of Commerce data augmented by travel-trend reports
from the Global Business Travel Association, AARP, IATA, Cruise Lines
International Association, and cruisemarketwatch.com.
MMGY Global’s Portrait of American Travelers was particularly
helpful. Data from these sources were used to create detailed models of
trip costs to various regions, to extrapolate out the Commerce
Department statistics, and to make projections on percentage of covered
trips, traveler ages, and travel-insurance cost as a percentage of trip
cost. These projections were used to calculate total 2018
travel-insurance sales, and then those figures were compared against
last year’s figures to chart percentage change.
About Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection
Berkshire
Hathaway Travel Protection is the trade name for the travel protection
products and services of Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Concierge, LLC, a
subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company, part of
the National Indemnity group of insurance companies. Berkshire Hathaway
Travel Protection created the ExactCare® line of travel insurance,
AirCare® flight and other travel-related protections. The AirCare® and
ExactCare® products are provided by Berkshire Hathaway Specialty
Insurance Company or National Liability & Fire Insurance Company. Visit bhtp.com
for more information.