ESSENTIAL READING FOR TRAVEL INSURANCE INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS

International Travel Insurance Journal

Page 22 Page 30Page 26 Page 28

ISSUE 58 • NOVEMBER 2005

ITIJITIJPakistan overwhelmed by quake crisis On 8 October, a massive earthquakerocked Pakistan and northern India,resulting in the extensive destruction ofproperty and the loss of thousands oflives. Initial estimates suggested that atleast 33,000 persons perished, now itseems this number is more likely to bearound 80,000. Leonie Bennett reports

Most of the casualties from theearthquake, which measured 7.6 on theRichter scale, were from Pakistan. Theepicentre of the quake, which lasted forover a minute, was near Muzzaffarabad,capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, at9:20 a.m. Indian Standard Time. Tremorswere reported in Delhi, Punjab, Jammu,Kashmir, Uttaranchal, Himachal, Pradeshand Rajasthan, although no casualties ordamage were reported in those areas.Survivors have been wading throughmountains of rubble in search ofsurvivors, food and clean water. With asmany as five million people left homelessand living in the open, and freezingtemperatures, rescue and recoveryteams are much needed.“Indications are that almost 50 per centof the homes have been destroyed,”Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said. Twenty-four hoursafter the earthquake, President Pervez Musharrafmade an urgent televised appeal for internationalaid. Medicine tents and blankets for the displacedare urgently required. Rescue efforts have been slow to get underway.Heavy equipment is still in short supply, and manyremote towns and villages are still inaccessible,expect by air or on foot. Authorities fear the rains

may trigger landslides in the region’s still unsettledhills and mountains. Helicopters have beengrounded during the storms, further delaying thedelivery of emergency supplies. After four days,areas still had not received supplies.Islamic Relief spokesperson, Waseem Yaqhoob, saidhe thought the deaths would reach 80,000, maybemore: “This could get close to tsunami levels. It’shorrific. It really is terrible.” The Pakistan

government has established a Federal ReliefCommission to boost co-ordination of the massiverelief operation, in the hope that it will streamlinerelief operations in collaboration with the provincialgovernment, relevant ministries, NGOs, the RedCrescent and other international agencies.Countries around the world have launched appealsto fund relief efforts, in much the same way as

Europe panics atavian flu threatThe deadly strain of bird flu that has killedapproximately 60 people in Asia has spread toEurope and the continent is in panic. LeonieBennett reports on what is being done to stem thespread of the virus

On 13 October, scientists confirmed that the bird fluvirus was found in poultry in Turkey, the first timethat the virus has been found outside Asia, markinga new phase in the virus’s spread across the globe.Then, on the 17 October, it was established thatthe virus had infected Romanian birds. It wasconfirmed as the H5N1 strain that it is feared canmutate into a human disease, potentially spirallingout of control and threatening the lives of millions ofpeople worldwide. European Union officialsconfirmed that the latest spread was likely due tobirds migrating across the Black Sea from Russia tohead south for the winter.The discovery has led European governments toplace rush orders for millions of doses of vaccines,such as Tamiflu, and to prepare emergency plans foran outbreak. Health officials throughout Europe areurging people, especially those in high-risk groups,such as the elderly and children, to get inoculatedwith the standard winter flu jab immediately. Themass orders are not just to protect vulnerablecitizens, but also to provide drug firms with the capitalthey need to build up manufacturing capacity so theycan quickly make mass doses of the vaccine against amutated virus in the event of a general outbreak.The virus originated in Southeast Asia, has movedthrough China and Russia, and has resulted in theslaughter of more than 140 million birds. In ITIJ’s lastreport on the virus’ deadly path (see ITIJ 56,September 2005, Bird flu threat keeps growing), itwas still moving through Southeast Asia. So far,however, it is thought that the virus appears to onlyhave the ability to pass from bird to bird.“There is no evidence that the virus has mutatedinto a form allowing it to pass from person toperson,” David Nabarro, the United Nations (UN)co-ordinator for avian and human influenza, said in astatement on 11 October. However, although theWorld Health Organization (WHO) said that it has‘no convincing evidence’ of sustained human-to-human transmission, it suspects ‘limited transmissionbetween humans’ in cases in Cambodia, Thailandand Vietnam.“If it acquires the capacity to co-opt humans as acarrier, it will set off a pandemic that could end thelives of millions and, if history holds true, could alterthe culture, the politics and the prosperity ofmillions more,” US health and Human Servicessecretary Michael Leavitt said. He did add though:continued on p.38

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Canadian travel insurers see continuing market growthThanks to a resilient snowbird community,burgeoning traffic with the Orient, and diversifyingtravel trends among younger flyers, Canadiantravel insurers can anticipate a buoyant marketwell into the foreseeable future, suggests newresearch data from the Conference Board ofCanada (CBoC). Milan Korcok investigates Canada’spotential

Speaking to the annual meeting of the Travel HealthInsurance Association of Canada, in Toronto, inSeptember, David Redekop, principal researchassociate for the CBoC, reported a strong rebound

in inbound and outbound traffic after the 2003 SARSexperience caused tourism to Canada, particularlythe province of Ontario, to plummet. Since 2003,when Canadians took just over 15 million trips outof the country, the outbound trip figures have‘bounced up resiliently’ to 16.8 million in 2004 andare projected to hit almost 19 million in 2006. Thisis up substantially from the previous recent low of14.3 million outbound in 1998, but the 2006projection will still not top the previous all time peakof 19.5 million in 1991.For travel insurers, the biggest variable in thisoutbound trend may be the continued resilience of

the snowbird market – retired Canadians aged 55and older travelling out of the country for at least 30consecutive days, usually during the winter, to thesouthern US. The CBoC data reveals that in 2003,there were approximately 526,000 Canadians inthis snowbird category who travelled abroad –mostly to the US, some to Mexico. That is upsubstantially from 457,000 in 1998. The CBoCprojects the 2005 number of snowbird trips to hit654,000 (a healthy 7.2 per cent more than theprevious year), and to attain 687,000 in 2006.The CBoC rates the value of the Canadian travel

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WHAT’S INTHIS ISSUE?

REGULARSNews 1Editorial comment 4Grapevine 5Insurance matters 8Company brief 14Health matters 16Air ambulance news 18Travel matters 20News analysis: The cost of natural disasters 22ITIJ Awards finalists 24World markets: France 28Hot spots 33Dick’s hotline: From Cancun to Timbuktu 33Service directory 34Diary dates 38Smile corner 38On the move 39Contributors 39

FEATURES

Should travel insurance be compulsory?Part 2 26Fair regulation: does Europe have theanswer? 30

ITIJ TEAMEditor-in-chief: Ian CameronEditor: Sarah Lee

Sub-editor: Leonie Bennett

Staff writer: Hannah Langfield

Designers: Eli ButlerChris Marke

US correspondent: Milan Korcok

India correspondent: Saby Ganguly

Legal correspondent: Dick Atkins

Conference manager: Denise Clements

Production: Adele Brown

Production assistant: Helen Watts

Advertising sales: Jude EdwardsDavid Fitzpatrick

Finance: Helen Parker

Cartoonist: Chris Duggan

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NEWS2

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

Lessons learned in Bali bombsSuicide bombers destroyed the lives of 23 people andmaimed 100 others on the resort island of Bali, atthree restaurants in Jimbaran, with their shrapneland nail-laced explosives. At the bigining of Octoberanother bomb went off in Kuta, where bombings inOctober 2002 killed more than 200 people. Theywere, however, met with a smooth response fromthe emergency services. Miles Clarke reports

Admittedly, the bombs on the evening of 1 Octoberwreaked far less havoc than those of the Sari Club andPaddy’s Bar in Kuta in October 2002, but lessonshave clearly been learnt. As the nearest country withWestern medical services, Australia was quick off themark, with the Royal Australian Air Force evacuating adozen of the seriously injured to Darwin. The 12Australian patients, all on stretchers and some withextensive burns, were loaded into individualambulances parked in front of Sanglah general hospitalbefore setting off for the airport. The patients wereflown on a special military evacuation Herculesairplane that was also used to help victims of lastyear’s tsunami in Indonesia’s Aceh province. AnIndonesian patient, accompanied by his wife, was alsotransported to Australia aboard the same flight foremergency surgery. The chief executive of Mondial emergency responsein Brisbane, John Colless, said a disaster plan swunginto action within minutes of the news of thebombing: “We learnt a lot from the 2002 bombingand worked closely with the Department of ForeignAffairs and Trade (DFaT). They managed the situationon the ground and we gave expert assistancewherever required. Without doubt, the medicalfacilities in Bali have been improved significantly sincethe bombing and they are far better equipped tohandle burns cases than before.”Mr Colless said that, while the terrorism attacks werehorrendous in themselves, the expertise andpreparedness to deal with these situations was welldeveloped. “We estimate some 85 per cent ofAustralians now have travel cover, up about 15 pointson two years ago and we now need to factorterrorism into the equation – remote a chance as itstill is,” he added.

International SOS, another major regionalmedical assistance company, air-lifted fivevictims on a Beechcraft 1900D air ambulanceto Singapore and two victims to Darwin fromBali. Three air ambulances – a Beechcraft1900D, a Lear 35 and a Lear 45 – were alsoactivated and made four trips to evacuateseven patients. The hunt for the masterminds behind themassacres continues in Bali and on the island ofJava. Public anger is swelling against the Islamistradicals behind the bombings, with Balineseopenly questioning why terrorists receive aneasier run through the justice system than drugcouriers. It is suspected that the bombers maybe linked to Jemaah Islamiyah; the al-Qaeda-affiliated group the government holdsresponsible for the earlier Bali attack.Bali hoteliers implemented an emergency planimmediately after the bombings. Some 66hotel general managers were alerted by SMSwithin 30 minutes of the first blast and set aboutlocating their guests and confirming their wellbeing. Ifthey were unable to find their guests, they set aboutadvising the embassies of the country of origin of theguests. Tight security was also put in place at all hotelsin the wake of the attacks. The Bali Hotels Association, meanwhile, hostedaccommodation for inbound family members of theinjured, with all arriving holidaymakers receiving specialgifts of flowers in appreciation of their commitment tocontinue their holiday plans. The association reportsan overall drop in demand for available rooms ofaround 10 per cent and is confident business has notbeen damaged to the same extent as in 2002. A measure of resilience to terrorism is building withregard to tourist traffic to Bali. While there wasdetermined effort by some visitors to leaveimmediately after the bombings, Qantas reported lessthan 500 customers cancelling their forward bookings,while another 300 deferred their travel plans for Bali.No flight schedules were changed. Garuda Indonesiaallowed passengers to defer or cancel their flightswithout penalty and maintained full flight schedulesfrom all destinations to and from Bali.

Risk management top of the listWith an increasing number of new risk areas, it isessential that businesses recognise these andincorporate them into everyday working practice.However, in a report published by Lloyd’s recently,research demonstrates that board directors at globalbusinesses are failing to do exactly this. In acomprehensive survey carried out with theEconomistIntelligence Unit,more than 100business leaders froma range of countriesand sectors wereasked for their viewson how they thoughttheir organisationscoped with risk. Theoverall consensuswas that they failedto effectively identifyand manageemerging risks. Newareas, such as cybercrime and the risingprediction ofmanmade and natural disasters, have not been dealtwith swiftly, as the survey results show:• The overriding results showed at least half of thecompanies had at least one ‘near miss’. • One in three companies suffered significantdamage as a result of failure to manage risk.The amount of time boards are spending on riskmanagement has risen four-fold in the past threeyears.• Boards are now assessing a wider range of risks inthe light of corporate scandals and regulatoryintervention, but they are ignoring other headlinerisks such as terrorism and the weather.

• Despite recent terrorist attacks, less than half ofcompanies are reassessing their risk managementstrategies. For natural hazards it is less than aquarter.According to Julian James, Lloyd’s director ofworldwide markets, business leaders are notprepared for the likelihood of costly risk

management failure.Although it isencouraging thatthey have increasedtime and resourcesspent on riskmanagement, theyshould still be doingmore to recogniseand prepare for thepotential cripplingeffects of the risksthey face. “The firststep is forbusinesses torecognise thecomplex global risksthey now face and

put risk management at the top of their agenda,”directed James.Further findings reveal that some obstaclesorganisations have to deal with are structural asmuch as they are attitudinal. With much disparity inthe way organisations manage risk, there needs tobe an embedded culture of risk managementthroughout, so that it becomes an integral part ofoffice practice. Currently, only half of all companiessurveyed have centralised risk management withtwo thirds of boards not having received training ineither identifying emerging risk or implementing riskmanagement across their organisations.

insurance market at CA$260.7 million in individualpolicy sales, CA$103.6 million in annual policy sales,and CA$139.8 million in trip cancellation. Alsoencouraging for travel insurers is that surveys showCanadians to be ‘dauntless’ in insisting on their wintervacations. The CBoC report noted that in thesummer of 2001, 4.1 million Canadians said theyintended to take an outbound winter vacation in thecoming year. By June 2005, that number had risen to6.8 million. Canada’s population is just over 32 million.One particularly significant trend among Canadiantravellers is their tendency to diversify their traveldestinations, with lower ratios travelling to the USand more to other countries. In fact, for the firsttime, almost as many ‘insurance risk nights’ will bespent at non-US locations as in the US, says theCBoC. A risk night is an insured night spent out ofthe country. Another significant trend is thatCanadian travellers today are older, they travelfarther and they stay longer.Between 2004 and 2011 there will also be 21 percent more people 65 and older going overseas,and that will be the greatest increase in overseastravel in any age cohort. The next highest increasewill be an estimated 16 per cent among people inthe 55 to 64 year age group, says the report.One of the greatest potential travel insurancemarket changes will be the increasing shift of trafficto Asia, particularly China, says the CBoC, whichnotes that, while there has been an average annual3.4 per cent reduction in visitors from the US toCanada since 1990, and only a 1.6 per centaverage annual increase from Europe, there hasbeen a 7.7 average annual increase of visitors fromAsia over that time. And though there was a slumpdue to SARS in and around 2003, there was a bigrebound in 2004 with travel from Thailandbouncing up 9.9 per cent, from Japan 12.7 percent, and from China 51.1 per cent.Another remarkable demographic is the increase inair capacity between the two countries. In the Mayto October 2003 SARS season, there were121,468 seats offered by carriers from Canada toChina. In the same period in 2005 there were208,826 seats available, with China East Airlinegrowing its capacity by a staggering 243 per cent.The CBoC report suggests that Canadians can beexpected to substantially increase their travel toEastern Europe, where borders are opening upand dollars are flowing in to build up the tourisminfrastructure. Travel can also be expected toincrease to Central America and Caribbeanlocations, which are upgrading many of theirfacilities, and destinations are becoming much moreactive in competing for tourism dollars. Finally, theCBoC also notes that to date Africa and the MiddleEast have been underperforming in the tourismmarket, but that may well change and they offergreat tourism potentials.

Canadian travelinsurers see growth

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Editorialcomment

It seems at times that things are getting alittle too far out of our control: that ourharnessing of the earth and her resourcesare but a meagre bid, compared to themight of our planet when she decides tostrike back. Our lead stories this month tellof immense devastation in Pakistan due tothe powerful earthquake that occurredthere on 8 October, and the increasinglyapparent spread of the deadly strain of birdflu that has migrated from Asia into Europe.In our News analysis section, we considerthe effect of the recent spate of naturaldisasters – hurricanes and the Asian Tsunami– on the global insurance industry, and inour Health matters section we learn of anincreasing West Nile virus threat in the USand serious typhoid alert in Africa. But the wrath of Nature seems only toreinforce our determination to worktogether to overcome our differences andunite in a common cause. In India, theprime minister pledged aid and support tolong-term adversary Pakistan to help withrescue operations after the earthquake; andthe insurance industry in the US is bendingthe rules, with some insurers saying they willnot cancel coverage for non-payment ofpremiums in the wake of Katrina, and willextend grace periods for those policyholdersaffected by the hurricane. Even in the face of man-made atrocities,such as the recent bombings on theIndonesian island of Bali, the co-ordinatedand efficient emergency assistance effortshows that we, as an industry, have learntvaluable lessons from previous disasters.And people are continuing to travel. Notonly that, they are increasingly thinking totake out travel insurance. From India, wehave a news report on the growth of thetravel insurance sector and in our Travelmatters section, we learn of an increasinggap-year travel market amongst the over50s. So, it’s not all bad news. The travelinsurance industry is unique in bringingtogether so many elements from variousrelated markets, and working together toprovide a service that straddles borders,crosses language barriers, and even unites topick up the pieces in the event of calamity –whatever its source.

Sarah LeeEditor

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

NEWS4

Governator protectstravellersAfter a number of US states introduced legislationdenying life insurance companies the right todecline coverage for applicants travelling to whatis considered high-risk countries, Florida has beenpetitioning for the same legislation (See ITIJ 56,September 2005, Congress debates insuranceexclusion zones). Miles Clarke reports on thelatest development

California Governor and former movie star, ArnoldSchwarzenegger, hassigned into law a billthat prohibits a lifeand disability insurerfrom denying a policyto anyone travellingto a country on theUS StateDepartment TravelAdvisory List, unlessthe risk of exposurehas beensubstantiated. The countries on thelist, which includeIsrael, have not beenshown to havehigher fatalitiesamong tourists thanany otherdestination. “It is notright to denycoverage based onany past or futuretravel withoutshowing real risks,” said Jonathan Bernstein, AntiDefamation League director, who lobbied hard tobring the ruling into law. Similar bills have alreadypassed in Illinois, New York and Washington.

Hurricane Standevastates GuatemalaJust weeks after hurricanes Dennis and Ritadestroyed parts of the Gulf Coast, parts of Mexicoand surrounding areas witnessed major destructionfrom Hurricane Stan at the beginning of October,with many people reported dead in CentralAmerica. The category one storm fortunately lost strengthquite quickly. However, consequential high windsand mudslides were blamed for many fatalities. Theworst hit by Stan’s spawned rains has been

Guatemala, where authoritiessay 652 people have died andanother 337 people from theMayan Indian town of Panabajare missing, feared dead.About 130,000 have been lefthomeless in Guatemala, andthree million more have beenleft without electricity, waterand other basic services. Central Americangovernments are struggling toreach isolated, devastatedareas. Rescue efforts wereabandoned on 9 Octoberafter it became too dangerousto dig for survivors. DiegoEsquina, mayor of Panabaj,says his village “will no longerexist. We are asking that it bedeclared a cemetery. We aretired; we no longer knowwhere to dig. The bodies areso rotten that they can nolonger be identified. They will

only bring disease.”The hurricane is seen as the region’s worst naturaldisaster since Hurricane Mitch, which killed 268people in 1998.

Airline compensationlaws are confusingFollowing the new European Union (EU) ruling inFebruary that applies to all flights to or from the EU,all air passengers experiencing a flight cancellation orlong delays stand to receive €250 to €600compensation (see ITIJ 50, March 2005, Newpassenger compensation rights). Since these newrules came into effect, however, the number ofcomplaints and queries has increased fourfold,causing uproar among commercial airlines. It is aparticular problem for low-budget airlines that keeptheir costs down by eliminating paperwork – theydo not have the capacity to deal with increasedadministration that bigger airlines do. Slowgovernment implementation of new rulings,coupled with challenges on behalf of theInternational Air Transport Association (IATA) andthe European Low Fares Airlines Association, as wellas other associations, has prompted the EuropeanCourt of Justice to reassess the situation. Simon Evans, chief executive of the Air TransportUsers Council, the UK organisation that representsairline passengers, can certainly vouch for thefourfold increase in complaints from his ownincreased workload: “These rules have certainlyraised expectations among passengers about whatthey can get if they have had a bad travelexperience.” Although an attempt to curb airlinesfrom deliberately overbooking and ‘bumping’passengers onto later flights, the legislation putforward by the EU has proven to be complicatedand not very effective. Some airlines say that therules have left them with an unsustainable financialrisk, especially low-cost carriers who could beforced to reimburse many times the actual price ofa ticket. The failing comes about through thecompensation scheme not being based on theactual ticket price, but instead implements acomplex rising scale for what passengers can claimfor events such as delays. In the word of Ryanair’shead of regulatory affairs Jim Callaghan, the newrules are ‘a complete mess’. One woman who paid€46 for her flight asked for €400 in compensation!According to IATA, applying the rules will cost EUairlines €560 million a year, over and above existingcompensation. That could amount up to as much as€40 million a year for medium-sized carriers –about a fifth of its operating profit. The new EUrulings also take European airlines legislation out ofsync with the rest of the world, despite theintentions of airline legislation to be a uniformworldwide system. Brussels remains hopeful, however, that the ruleswill provide an incentive for airlines to reduce delaysand cancellations, as there has been a notable dropin the number of routine over-bookings by airlines.Mitigating circumstances are catered for with the‘extraordinary circumstances’ clause, a ruling that lawfirms have been busy advising airlines to use to theiradvantage as European passengers become morelitigious. The lawyers, who have become the short-term benefactors, have highlighted the flow ofquestions that have been flooding in on behalf ofairlines as well as passengers. “Uncertainty andobscurity in the law is the main source of whypeople come to us,” says Mark Franklin, from Anglo-American law firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gary Cary.

www.itij.co.uk International Travel Insurance Journal

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Powder spill closesAdelaide airportIn these days of heightened terrorist alerts, staff atairports and other places around the world aregetting increasingly twitchy about any suspicious

items left unattended orsubstances that could bedangerous.Adelaide domestic airterminal, in Australia, wasclosed for two hoursrecently, after a staffmember noticed a whitepowder leaking fromluggage onto the check-inconveyor belt. Theterminal was evacuatedand three inbound andfour outbound flightswere delayed, affectinghundreds of passengers.After forensic testing, thesubstance was found to

be harmless and the terminal re-opened. Betterto be safe than sorry.

Banned due tot-shirtWhen deciding what to wear on a flight, it’s usuallybest to opt for comfort – just be careful what iswritten on your t-shirt. Southwest Airlines ejecteda Washington woman from a flight in Reno afterpassengers complained about her t-shirt.Apparently, the t-shirt had pictures of USPresident Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney andthe Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Whatharm is there in that you might well ask? Well,beneath the three faces was a phrase similar tothe film Meet the Fockers. The woman said it was a joke for herDemocrat parents to see when theypicked her up in Portland, Oregon. Thewoman is intending to file a civil rightscase against the airline.

Kuala Lumpuron cameraFollowing the huge success of KualaLumpur’s 14 CCTV cameras installed inthe city to help catch thieves and bagsnatchers, an additional 200 of the devices are setto be implanted by next year. Making it one ofthe most monitored cities in the region, thecameras will help city police closely observe anyillegal activity, 24 hours a day.During the holiday season, when Kuala Lumpurreceives an influx of tourists, especially from theMiddle East, crime is rife, so to protect visitors,cameras will be installed in the most crime-proneareas,includingthe touristbelt ofArab Streetin BukitBintang.The policewill also begrantedaccess tothe city’sIntegratedTransportInformationSystemcameras,whichpresently number 255 and are placed alongmajor roads around the city.

Indians demandtravel insuranceIndian travellers are increasingly accepting theneed to have travel insurance for overseas trips.Ian Youngman reports

The foreign travel market growth rate in India isabove 15 per cent a year. As well as growth inbusiness and holiday travel, Indians make longjourneys, often staying several months at a time, torelatives in America and Europe. Ian Youngmanreports Although some policies are sold direct and a few byintermediaries, most are still sold by travel agents.Trip cover is still the most common, though annualpolicies are increasingly bought, mostly bycompanies. However, it has to be said, that cover ismostly bought on price, with little considerationgiven to cover or medical limits, by the individual.Corporates buyingannual policies are,however, increasinglylooking at the coverprovided.It is a mere five yearssince the liberalisationof the insurancesector. Previously, justthe four state-ownedgeneral insurancecompanies offeredfairly basic cover.Although there are stillonly a handful ofprivate insurers in thecountry, several offer travel. The main players areTata AIG, Bajaj Allianz and Royal Sundaram. Thestate companies allow trips up to 180 days, butprivate insurers mostly have much lower limits.India’s travel market is one of the fastest growingmarkets in the world. The overseas travel insurancemarket is growing, while in such a large countrythere is potential for the growth of domestic travelcover. Because of the significant medical costs in theUS and Canada, travel agents and others have littledifficulty in persuading people to have cover. But aperson travelling within India or to Malaysia remainsa much harder sell.

Zambia keepsvisitors coveredAs the Visit Zambia 2005 campaign continuesapace, the Zambia State Insurance Corporation(ZSIC) has begun talks with airlines to build insome premium in the ticket for visitors coming toZambia. By Benedict Tembo in Lusaka

The increase in premium is a bid to ensure thatvisitors coming to Zambia are thoroughly coveredfor medical and insurance expenses while visitingthe country. ZSIC head of corporate development,Chibamba Kanyama, said in Lusaka that under thetour-pack, the firm has also come up with apersonal accident scheme, which provides cover tothe family while on holiday as well as family travelaccident. “ZSIC’s current process is to negotiate with airlinesto build in some premium in the ticket for visitors

coming to Zambia sothat they arethoroughly coveredeven for medical andfuneral expenses whilevisiting the country,”Mr Kanyama said. He said the discussionswere still ongoing butZSIC anticipated abreakthrough soon,particularly withZambian Airways. “Other insurancecompanies can offerthis policy but it

depends on their underwriting competence,” MrKanyama said. He explained that tourism was ahighly specialised risk and as such, it requiredexperience. Mr Kanyama said the International Air TransportAssociation requirement, now, is that visitors beinsured for about US$1 million. “For an insurancecompany to give this kind of cover, there is need tohave reinsurance companies that are on a treatyarrangement, in other words, entrusting thecorporation to pass on any further risks based onthe initial annual agreement,” Mr Kanyama said.“ZSIC, like any other insurance company, is a riskmanagement company. ZSIC is well known for

engaging professionals who are able toadvise clients on the need to preventloss. In the case of tourism, there arevarious risks. The assets for allcompanies engaged in this businessmust be managed against risk so thatthere is no danger to tourists. Motorvehicles must be in good workingcondition; buildings (lodges, hotels)must have fire extinguishers and not bein a state that would pose danger. Theenvironment must be secure enoughetc. In short, the risk managers taketime assessing every asset and possibleliability to the public and tourists.”

Regulating jet skisThe Dubai Department of Tourism andCommerce Marketing has been holding talks withthe representatives of Dubai Municipality, as wellas hotels and resorts, to discuss new regulationsfor jet skis and beach safety issues. The attendeeswere briefed on a new ban on the use of jet skisin certain places on Dubai beaches, specifically infront of beach hotels. The move is an effort toreduce noise, pollution and accidents.Under the new legislation, all jet skis will need tobe registered and new licensing rules will alsocome into effect. The importance of insurancefor jet-ski users was also highlighted at themeeting. Other new laws include the banning ofunauthorised vehicles from the city’s beaches.

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

NEWS6

With its Patient Transport Compartment (PTC),Deutsche Lufthansa offers a solution for thetransport and intensive medical care of critically-ill patients on long-haul flights that hasbeen systematically developed and perfectedsince 1996.

The PTC is a closed space unit specially developedfor this purpose. As a result, the private sphere ispreserved and consistent intensive medical care ofthe patient made possible.As an independent fully-functional space unit, whenrequired the PTC can be installed in wide-bodiedaircraft like the B 747-400 and the A 340 fleetduring routine time spent on the ground inFrankfurt. Measuring 6 square metres and withnormal standing height, in comparison to anambulance aircraft, the PTC offers plenty of spacefor the treatment of patients.In addition to the patient bed, the compartmentcontains two seats for the medical crew, intensivecare equipment, 13,000 litres of oxygen and therequired consumable materials and drugs.LogisticsSince spring 2004, the PTC has been flying notonly to the B 747 destinations, but also on allintercontinental flights that are flown by the new A-340-300/600 fleet . Thus the number ofdestinations that can be reached directly with thePTC system has increased from 25 to more than

60 worldwide.In the event of an inquiry for the PTC system,approx. 30 minutes time is required for checkingthe system, in order to provide an approval. ThePTC transport is handled on the basis of a prioritysystem, irrespective of the capacity utilization of theflight. In order to guarantee smooth repatriation,the chronological course of the flight is discussed inadvance together with the customer. This includestransport to and from the airport. Here, preciseplanning is very important as the planned flightroutine of a schedule flight should not be affectedby a PTC tour.After the commissioning of the transport order andthe immediate operative preparation, on day 1, asa rule, the medical crew sets off from Frankfurt totravel to the patient. It is made up of the doctorprovided by the customer and the LH PTC Escort.The PTC Escort is a male or female flight attendantwith training as an intensive care nurse/paramedic.In addition to providing medical assistance, he/sheis responsible for the safety and coordination of thePTC Transport. Thus, the doctor has anexperienced assistant by his side, enabling him to

concentrateexclusively on themedical care of thepatient.On arrival at thedestination thereare usually at least24 hours beforethe return flight.The doctor takes alook at the patient’sdocuments andexamines thepatient in order toassess his/hertransportability. Allthe otherpreparatory work iscompleted duringthis time.If the patient is notfit for transportationat this time, there isstill time to stop the installation of the PTC inFrankfurt. It is thus possible to avoid the main costelement in the event of a cancellation or atemporal delay without the PTC being used. In thiscase, together with the customer, LH will discusswhat alternatives are then realizable. That couldmean: later use of the PTC or the return of the

medical crewwithout thepatient. In order toguarantee thatthe flight withthe PTC isconducted ontime and allwaiting timefor the patientis avoided, theflight can beregistered witha high prioritywith theCentral FlowManagementUnit (CMU) inBrussels.

Thanks to the well-coordinated logistics it isguaranteed that the patient can be brought onboard without problems and a reciprocalimpairment of passenger and medical transportdoes not occur. In the normal case, the patient isback home about two and a half days after themedical crew departs on its mission.The transfer at all airports is conducted, onprinciple, by Lufthansa. In Frankfurt a specialambulance highloader is available. At other stationsuse is made of a catering vehicle. This is safer andsimpler than bringing the patient aboard via theaircraft’s steps. If the patient is to be furthertransported by rescue helicopter or ambulanceaircraft, provisions can be made in advance for theLH aircraft and the other aircraft to be positionedimmediately next to each other. This ensures animmediate transfer of the patient.The total transport time must be kept to theabsolutely necessary minimum. The PTC systemfulfils this precondition, it facilitates a shortening ofthe transport time by up to 50%. Another important factor is the price of theintensive care transport. Included in the PTC price

is a B-Class ticket for the accompanying doctorfrom or to the patient, the medical equipment inaccordance with the requirements for intensivecare transport, drugs as well as medicalconsumable materials plus the PTC Escort.The price comparison is clearly in favour of thescheduled flight. The difference compared to anambulance flight is so substantial that the differencenot only covers the feeder and collection flightsbut, in addition, also produces a clear costadvantage for the scheduled flight. With cleareconomic, operative and medical advantages onlong-haul routes, the PTC is less a competingproduct, but rather a meaningful alternative to theambulance aircraft with a very specific performanceprofile.

Medical team and equipmentWhile the customer, as a rule, provides theaccompanying doctor for the transport, LHprovides the assisting medical personnel (intensivecare nurse/paramedic). The PTC Escort instructsthe doctor if necessary in the use of the medical

equipment, he is in possession of all the necessarylicenses required by the Federal Aviation Agency,and he assumes before and during transport allorganizational and safety-relevant responsibilities.This leads to a significant relief of the doctor, hecan concentrate fully on the medical treatment ofhis patient and is thereby integrated in the LH-internal flight procedure by the assistant. Thedoctor, as a rule, is a specialist and has bothintensive care and emergency medical experience.With Lufthansa’s Patient Transport Compartment aclosed intensive care unit is available for civilaviation which can be used on scheduled services.In 6 square metres, this unit offers a treatmentroom with standing room.The medical equipment includes intensive careequipment which offers a high degree of patientsafety. If necessary, further equipment can betransported. Due to the clearly shorter flying times and lower costs in comparison to theambulance jets, this system is an ideal alternativefor patients requiring intensive care, particularly onlong-haul flights.

Larger, safer and more beneficialThe PTC of Lufthansa sets new standards

Advertorialwww.lufthansa.com

Marsh sets sights onBeijing Olympics

Despite the tide of negative press that Marsh &McLennan has been generating of late, subsidiarycompany Marsh Inc. has managed to secure aconsulting and risk management services contractfor the 2008 summer Olympic Games in Beijing.Marsh was selected, by the Beijing Olympic Gamesorganising committee, after a highly competitivebidding process. “We are honoured to be selectedto provide risk and insurance services for thisprestigious global event,” said Patrick Vajda, head ofMarsh’s global events practice. Marsh will work incollaboration with China Sports Insurance BrokerCo Ltd to provide risk identification and assessmentin conjunction with a host of other services.PICC Property & Casualty Co Ltd was picked as theofficial insurance partner for the games – the 10thcorporation to sign on as a partner for the BeijingGames. As in previous Olympics, terrorismcoverage will be one of the primary concerns forinsurers and risk managers.

ACIC opposesinsurance regulationsThe Association of California Insurance Companies(ACIC) has strongly opposed recent Department ofInsurance proposed regulations. According toexecutive vice president, Jeff Fuller, the regulationswill be detrimental for insurers andAmericans alike and will increase the costof insurance, while preventing insurersfrom accurately pricing the repair andreplacement of damaged property. The criticism of the new proposedregulations are that, firstly, they wouldimpose restrictions on insurers’ use ofdatabases that contain extensiveinformation that helps to establish thevalue of insurance claims. The insurerswould only be allowed access todatabases if the owners of thosedatabases provide the Department ofInsurance full access to this information.Being that some of the information maybe proprietary, insurers will not be ableto assure that this information will bemade available to the department.Therefore, according to insurers, theregulations would jeopardise insurers’ use ofdatabases that they use to achieve fair settlement ofclaims. Other criticisms stated that the regulationswould prevent insurers from depreciating labour foractual cash value claims. The Department ofInsurance is proposing the insurers, in determiningthe cost of a loss, separate the materials fromlabours costs, thus the materials could bedepreciated, but the labour would not. Fuller firmlyconcludes: “Insurers are opposed to theseregulations because we want to do everythingpossible to keep costs down and to accurately andefficiently evaluate the cost of claims. Theseregulations would prevent us from achieving both ofthese goals.”

Royal & SunAlliancebuys Cruz del Sur

Royal & SunAllianceInsurance Group hasannounced the acquisition ofChile’s leading generalinsurance businessCompañia de SegurosGenerales Cruz del Sur S.A.and its Argentinean sistercompany La RepúblicaCompañía Argentina deSeguros Generales S.A. for$119 million (£68 million). The amalgamation of Cruzdel Sur and Royal &SunAlliance creates Chile’snumber one generalinsurance company with a22 per cent market share.Cruz del Sur’s 2004 gross

written premiums were $195 million (£102 million),its gross assets were $166 million (£86 million) andits combined ratio was 95.8 per cent. Chile has astable and developed insurance market and theacquisition is in line with the Group’s strategic aim ofbuilding strong positions in selected markets todeliver sustainable profitable performance.Simon Lee, chief executive of Royal & SunAllianceInternational Businesses, said: “We have developeda strong Latin American portfolio which has beenbuilt through a combination of organic growth andacquisitions. This deal combines the technicalexpertise of Royal & SunAlliance with thedistribution of Cruz del Sur. It positions us well forgrowth and generates significant operationalsynergies. In Chile it creates a powerful anddynamic market leader whilst in Argentina thetransaction further extends our geographic reach.” The transaction is subject to regulatory approvalsand other conditions.

Catastrophe supportcommittee set upThe International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC), which has been helping victims ofcatastrophes and conflict for over 140 years, hasbeen joined by eight founding members to create

the Corporate SupportGroup – a group thatwill support the aidorganisation’s globalhumanitarian efforts. The latest company toannounce its intentionsto join the SupportGroup, along withcompanies such asZurich FinancialServices, is Swiss Re.Board chairman PeterForstmoster stated:“Respect forhumanitarian values isindispensable to oursociety’s sustainabledevelopment. AndSwiss Re, as a leading

global reinsurer, has made a commitment tosustainable development and thus wishes to supportthe ICRC.” Swiss Re is to pledge a substantial sum to the ICRCover the next six years. It is a mutually beneficialarrangement for the companies involved, as thesefunds will assist the ICRC in continuing its work andfinance for further education and training. In return,this partnership also fosters the sharing ofinformation related to risk management, humanresources, logistics, IT and communication. “Thiscommitment represents the first institutional andlong-term co-operation agreement between theICRC and the private sector,” a spokesperson fromthe ICRC added.

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ABI calls for bondinvestigationThe Association of British Insurers has quietly urgedcredit rating agencies to modify the way they gradeEuropean corporate bonds, so that investors areable to gauge better where they will stand in theevent of a leveraged buy-out. Such a move has been prompted by recentconcerns that many traditional bondholders, such asinsurance companies or pension funds, could, in thelight of a recent boom in private equity buy-outs inEurope, face unexpected losses on their

investments. These worries have beenhighlighted by Goldman Sachs’unexpected take over of ISS, a Danishcleaning company. The move causedunexpected losses for investors, as ISS’sbonds moved from investment grade tojunk bond status without anycompensation for bondholders. Forthose who have challenged GoldmanSachs over the loss, it is unclearwhether they have a case, since whenthese ISS bonds were issued therewere no covenants preventing a changeof corporate control.In the light of these events, however,the ABI is now meeting bankers,lawyers, investors and issuers to drawup a new framework for bond issuancethat can give bondholders better clarityover their rights. Whilst some ratinganalysts welcome the move, others,

such as Standard & Poor’s, warn against it on thegrounds that its ratings narrowly focus on the abilityof a company to repay debt, rather than otherissues such as event risk. Analysts warn that theissues could gain more urgency in the monthsahead, as the growing size of private-equity fundsallows buy-out groups to become more ambitiousin their deals.

Tighter rules for theinsurance industryFollowing an increasing number of complaints fromcustomers and consumer groups about the waypolicies are sold, the Financial Services Authority (FSA)in the UK has announced plans to review regulationof the insurance industry.The review will not startuntil next April – a factthat consumer watchdogWhich? is not happyabout, deeming that sixmonths is still a long timefor people to continue tobuy these products.Nevertheless, the FSA’scampaign to improvepayment protectioninsurance will start as early as this November. LastJanuary saw the introduction of tougher rules tocounteract mis-selling, which will have been in placefor 16 months when the general review starts. Addedpressure also came from Citizens Advice, the debtcounselling service, which filed a ‘super complaint’with the Office of Fair Trading to obtain a fast-trackreview of payment protection insurance.The issues that have prompted most complaints, asidefrom payment protection, include critical illness coverand key facts documents. It is often the case thatinsurance companies and brokers sell these policies topeople who are not suitable or do not fully explainthe exclusions on critical illness policies. Key factdocuments that are meant to provide a summary ofcover and exclusions are not always provided, or arefar too lengthy.The FSA has said: “We are determined to improvestandards in this market and intend to publishexamples of good and bad practice so firms knowwhat we expect.” Which? said it wanted to seetougher rules applied to the selling of paymentprotection.

US P&C industry inprofit despite stormsRating agency, A.M. Best, has announced that the USproperty and casualty (P&C) industry has recorded anunderwriting profit of $13.2 billion during the first sixmonths of 2005.

The agency said stable operating results drove theindustry’s surplus base to a new high, despiteunrealised capital losses, increased shareholderdividends and other losses in surplus as insurerscontinued to reap the benefits of the hard market. Good news is that the overall impact of the recentstorms is not expected to create widespreadsolvency issues. Rather, A.M.Best expects a fewinsurers that will not be able to recapitalise theirbalance sheets to the level that supports theirratings, or whose risk management capabilitieshave been called into question, will suffer

downgrades to their financial strength and credit ratings.Despite the solid results posted for the first six monthsof 2005, A.M. Best Co. is concerned, however, withthe reduction of year-over-year premium rateincreases that persisted for consecutive reportingperiods since 2003 and gave way to premiumdecreases across most lines of business and sizes ofaccounts in 2005.Through the first six months of 2005, the P&Cindustry continued to build upon its capital basethrough strong operating results. These results weredriven by both a significant underwriting profit andincreased investment income from a larger investment base. However, while the first half of theyear had relatively low catastrophe losses, the full year2005 will end up being one of the worst catastropheyears for the US P&C industry, driven by HurricaneKatrina losses.Nevertheless, A.M. Best believes that 2005 will be aprofitable year for the P&C industry, although asecond consecutive year of underwriting profit maybe in question.

Japan Post sell-offThe Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, hasagreed to privatise the country’s postal system,which has $3 trillion in assets and has a number ofother services under its belt, including the sale ofsavings and insurance products.Analysts are mostly behind Koizumi’s efforts to endthe practice of government borrowing at low costfrom Japan Post in order to finance Japan’s hugedebt load, which is approaching 150 per cent of thecountry’s GDP. It is said that Japanese insurers willgain from the privatisation, as it will level the playingfield for financial and insurance products, andstimulate the country’shighly competitive privateinsurance sector. The first step of theprivatisation is theformation of a holdingcompany, in 2007, whichwill take over control ofthe system, and separateit into four divisions:savings, insurance, postalservices and humanresources and propertymanagement. Thecompany will begin togradually self off parts ofJapan Post, but thesavings and insurancedivisions will be permittedto maintain crossshareholdings in oneanother to protect them from takeovers. The sell-off remains controversial, however, asmany of Japan Post’s 25,000 branches are in ruralareas and local populations largely depend on themfor banking and insurance. There’s also the questionof how many of the approximately 260,000workers currently employed by Japan Post willretain their jobs.

he fastest growing reason for travel in the UK iseffecting the travel insurance market; latest

reports have revealed that visits to friends andrelatives was the fastest growing segment in terms ofreasons to travel in 2004, and in terms of the numberof trips grew by 14.7 per cent. The travel insurancemarket grew by over eight per cent in 2004 due to aresurgence in the number of visits abroad, premiumrate hardening throughout the industry and asubstantial rise in the number of package holidays,particularly to North America.

loyd’s announced an interim profit of £1.38billion ($2.47 billion) for the six month period

ended 30 June 2005, a 21 per cent increasecompared to the same period in 2004. Despite thesevere hurricane impact and in the absence of anyfurther major catastrophe or unforeseen events, themarket is still expected to make a profit in 2005.

ingfisher Assistance Limited, an emergencymedical subsidiary of Whiteley Insurance

Consultants (WIC), went into insolvency on 15 August2005. The liquidation of WIC on 15 June 2005 is thereason stated. At the close of business they had debtsin excess of half a million pounds.

rofitability among New Zealand’s non-life (P&C)insurers is expected to remain sound for the

remainder of 2005 and into 2006, according toStandard & Poor’s latest report card on the sector. Ithas rated 25 non-life insurers in New Zealand with aratings distribution firmly skewed toward the strongrating categories. Seventy-five per cent are rated ‘A’category and above, and there is an emerging sectorof ‘B’ ratings in the small start up insurers who providecredit insurance and property-type insurance.

ardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) has announced theopening of its new reinsurance office in Tokyo. It isto be a liaison operation rather than a

transactional broker, offering access to London-headquartered JLT’s global reinsurance expertise andmarkets.

lea, the London-listed Bermuda-registeredreinsurer, said it is considering putting itself up for

sale yesterday after it suffered a ratings downgrade byStandard & Poor’s, the rating agency.

ssicurazioni Generali S.p.A has issued a statementto clarify rumours regarding the acquisition of a

minority of the subsidiary company AlleanzaAssicurazioni S.p.A. It said that such an initiative has notbeen subject to evaluation by the company and is notcurrently part of the Generali Group’s plans.

.M.Best Co. has downgraded the financialstrength rating (FSR) to ‘A’ from ‘A+’ and has

assigned issuer credit ratings of ‘a+’ to Allianz LifeInsurance Company of North America and itssubsidiary, Allinaz Life Insurance Company of New York(collectively known as Allianz Life).

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Katrina causes aninsurance stirIn the ensuing devastation ofHurricane Katrina, insurancetechnicalities are rife, leading tolawsuits being filed left, right andcentre. With tens of thousandsof homeowners invariably goingto discover that their insuranceclaims will not cover the cost ofrebuilding their homes, epicbattles are set to ensue, many ofwhich will have to be settled incourt leaving home owners inlimbo until such time.One of the first claims to be made was byMississippi Attorney General, Jim Hood, who hasaccused five US insurance companies of trying totrick Hurricane Katrina survivors out of millions ofdollars in damage payouts. The issue has becomean extremely grey area, as insurers andpolicyholders are trying to discern exactly what iscovered in policies. The intricacies in the differencebetween wind and rain damage, storm surge andflood damage has become a very volatile issue.Hood is insistent that insurance companies areasking policyholders to acknowledge that damage isflood related, which they are not covered for.Louisiana’s commissioner from 1992 until 2004, JimBrown, believes that only a quarter of houses in thepoorest areas affected by Hurricane Katrina hadflood insurance. Standard insurance, held by thevast majority of homeowners, will cover stormdamage but not flood damage. Realistically onlyabout 20 per cent of damaged homeowners wouldhave thought about purchasing flood insurancebecause the water had never been known to reachsuch areas before.Even for the minority who did purchase floodinsurance, the compensation falls very short; offeringlosses of up to only $250, 000. Contentiously,many won’t even receive that much as many of theaccused insurers have been insisting that theirpolicies specifically excluded flooding caused bystorm surge. Thus, even those with hurricaneprotection clauses stand to lose out as they excludewater damage. “There is a big insurance gap,” MrBrown said. “In all likelihood, many people willsuffer great financial loss.”The hardest decision, which will have to be deferredto the courts, is whether damage was caused bywind or rain, in which case insurance companies willbe liable, whereas if water comes from the ground,they forgo responsibility and the Federal FloodInsurance Programme is liable (See ITIJ 57, October2005, Katrina: wind or water). Many homeownerswill argue that the flooding was caused by the windand torrential rain, which led to the bursting oflevees in New Orleans. Reconstruction cannot beginuntil insurance money has been procured, andinsurers are certainly not going to concederesponsibility for flooding in a hurry, to do so wouldbring down many smaller insurers.

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AXA plans expensiveclaims change

AXA chief executive,Peter Hubbard, hasrevealed that thecompany hasplanned afundamental changein the way that theyhandle their claims,by deploying amulti-million poundinvestment in adrive to bring all

claims handling in-house under a single system. The insurer plans to invest £10 million in a movethat will create a claims settling process into the mainselling point of the company. Currently, it can take aslong as six months to settle claims, and Hubbard isintent on changing this. He believes that within fiveyears, the bulk of AXA claims will be handled withinseven working days. He plans for both commercialand personal lines claims to be handled on a singlesystem by the end of the year, bringing everythingin-house. The idea is to create a paperless officewith a new workflow and image system so that allcommunications will be on screen. It also aims to substantially cut the level ofoutstanding claims, and believes that a shift toelectronic handling of claims would drive forward allthese changes. AXA currently already processes99.9 per cent of all new business on a singleelectronic system which will help lead to a rapidspeed of service.

France insurersbounce backThe French insurance industry has recovered itshealth after the shaking it received from theWorld Trade Centre terrorist attacks in 2001 andthe two hurricanes that battered parts of Franceat the end of 1999, according to the nationalinsurance authority. Barbara Casassus reportsfrom Paris

The Commission de contrôle des assurances,des mutuelles et des institutuions de prévoyance(CCAMP) said in its annual report for 2004 thatboth the life and non-life sectors had picked up well,while officials added that cyclone Katrina should notcause major problems since French exposure to thedisaster is fairly limited. This was the first annualreport drawn up since the two insuranceauthorities, the CCA and CCMIP, were merged inJuly 2004.In France, the industry scored a five per centincrease in activity last year, and reported totalprofits of more than €7 billion. Even so, the mutualsare still too dispersed and many do not have thecritical mass they need to survive the competition,officials say. Of the 2,400 mutuals in France, 100 areresponsible for two-thirds of their total turnover. The authority also took disciplinary action against anumber of operators who stepped out of line lastyear. Fédération Continental, a subsidiary ofGenerali France, was fined €300,000 for failing torespect its obligations in cracking down on moneylaundering. Another case now in appeal before theCouncil of State involves Predica, the life-insurancesubsidiary of Crédit Agricole. It is under fire foraltering group contracts and for the terms coveringunderwriting provisions. During the year, theauthorities opened 12 disciplinary procedures,including six against top executives, and issued sixwarnings. Despite this, the future is definitelylooking brighter for French insurance companies.

General Re chieffaces civil chargesDue to an alleged role in overseeing a controversialreinsurance transaction with AIG, Joseph Brandon,chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway’s GeneralReinsurance and one of Warren Buffet’s closestconfidants, is facing civil charges from the Securitiesand Exchange Commission (SEC). Repercussions are serious, as Mr Brandon stands tobe barred by the SEC from serving as an officer anddirector of a public company. Two former seniorGeneral Re executives have already given guiltypleas to charges of fraud for their involvement inarranging the transaction and have since been fired.It appears that federal regulators are taking a toughstance of Berkshire Hathaway’s alleged involvementin inappropriate accounting practices and thatpossible charges against Mr Brandon may be usedas an example to the insurance industry.The transaction, which involved General Re payingAIG $500 million in premiums in 2000 and 2001 totake on the payment of claims that General Re hadincurred in earlier years, served to inflate thefinancial figures.

merican International Group Inc. (AIG) hasissued an estimate of its total expected losses relatingto third quarter catastrophe events, principallyHurricane Katrina, totalling approximately $1.1 billionafter tax. They estimate a total loss after tax, ofreinsurance recoverables to be approximately $900million, with an expected after-tax charge of around$170 million relating to reinstatement premiums.

einsurers slumped after the double punch ofKatrina and Rita. Bermuda-based reinsurer

PXRE Group led the declines, losing 13 per cent to$15.04. Endurance Specialty Holdings fell more thansix per cent and Montpelier Re dropped almost fiveper cent. Shares of property and casualty insurers alsofell, Allstate Corp. declined by 2.9 per cent to$51.55.

unich Re has issued an overall estimate onbehalf of the insurance industry of US$40

billion as to the total impact of Hurricanes Katrinaand Rita. It has also raised its own exposure to around€650 million ($782 million) after tax.

he US P&C insurance industry’s net income aftertaxes rose 29.1 per cent to a record $30.9 billion

in the first half of 2005, from $23.9 billion for the sameperiod in 2004. In a reflection of the industry’s income,its consolidated surplus increased 4.7 per cent to$412.5 billion at 30 June from $393.8 billion at year-end 2004. It will need such good results, however, as ithas to deal with the forthcoming insured losses forHurricane Katrina and Rita.

GF recorded better than expected results withan 8.5 per cent rise in interim profits amid

speculation that Allianz, its German parent, isconsidering buying out minority shareholders.Executives say that such a deal might make sense inthe mid to long-term but is not currently on theagenda.

quitable policyholders have demanded theresignation of Vanni Treves, chairman of the life

assurer, after the collapse of the company’s court caseagainst its auditor Ernst & Young.

on, the world’s second-biggest insurance broker,is to cut its UK workforce by 750 in the next

two years to rationalise UK operations. Fallinginsurance premiums and changes to commission thathave been bought about by challenges to practices byEliot Spitzer have been blamed.

urich Financial Services Group announced todaythat, based on preliminary assessments, it

expects aggregate claims payments related toHurricane Katrina of approximately $600 million after tax.

ermuda-based Max Re Capital Ltd said thatpreliminary estimates indicate that the

company’s 2005 third quarter earnings will benegatively impacted by $60 to $90 million as a resultof Hurricane Katrina. Max Re is still calculating losses from the previous hurricane that hit the US inlate August.

erkshire Hathaway (BKRA) (BKRB) said itexpects to pay between three per cent and five

per cent of total industry losses from Katrina.

ebraska-based Physicians Mutual announced itwill not cancel any coverage for non-payment of

premiums and will extend grace periods for thosepolicyholders impacted by the effects of HurricaneKatrina. These extensions give policyholders importantleeway as they begin to rebuild their lives.

ccording to catastrophe modelling firm, EqecatInc., wind damage from Hurricane Rita may

cost insurers between $9 billion and $18 billion. Theestimate was made based on Rita hitting landbetween Port Arthur, Texas and Orange. Rita also hitthe Florida Keys before moving into the Gulf of Mexicoand insured losses from that could range from $300million to $800 million.

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Eliot Spitzer keeps industry on its toesEliot Spitzer’s campaign to clean up the insuranceindustry continues apace. Whilst following up furtherclaims against Marsh & McLennan, the New YorkAttorney General has seen his probes encouragecountries farther afield to action responsibleinsurance measures.Spitzer may have sued Marsh & McLennan, inOctober 2004, for an agreed $850 million, due toclaims of bid rigging schemes, but that was not the lastof the company’s troubles. The world’s largestinsurance broker remains under numerousinvestigations by state attorneys general andcommissioners of insurance. Moreover, Spitzer hasannounced the indictment of eight former executivesof insurance giant Marsh Inc., due to accusations ofcollusion with executives at other leading insurancecompanies to artificially inflate the price of excesscasualty insurance. The indictments follow guilty pleas from 17 individuals,including former Marsh employees. As Spitzeremphasises: “These indictments are part of acontinuing effort to hold individuals accountable for bidrigging and other illegal activities that defraudedinsurance clients.” Investigators have spent hourstrawling through internal documents and reviewingthousands of internal emails in an attempt to worktheir way up the Marsh chain of command, in thehope that they will discover those who orchestratedthe fraud. The indictment charges the eight individualswith Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree as well asother various accounts of felony.A further problem, highlighted by Spitzer, is trying tobring under control contingent commissions thatalso artificially inflate the price of commercialinsurance – although legal, insurers tend to usethem to funnel to brokerages in return for morebusiness, linking them to kickbacks, a practice thathas had international reverberations.Spitzer’s influence caused red flags as far afield asAustralia, with his probes into bid rigging andcontingency fee abuse on the part of insurance

brokers prompting an investigation: Despite nomention of complaints by risk managers in Australia,no suspicious activity reported or leaks bywhistleblowers, Mr Spitzer’s actions prompted Aussieregulators to launch a six-month investigation of theirown. Fortunately, a clean bill of health was issued, butthe main reason for prompting such investigations wasdue to a substantial increase in contingentcommissions. It also prompted Australian brokers tore-examine their own compliance procedures andmake sure the highest ethical standards were beingmaintained. Although this did little to foster trust inbrokers, it reassured the consumer that the regulatoris a responsible vigilant protector of their interests.Meanwhile, Jeffrey Greenberg, former chief executiveof Marsh & McLennan, who was ousted almost a yearago by Spitzer under bid-rigging allegations, hasmarked a come back.He is starting a private equity fund that will invest ininsurers and other financial services companies.Although the exact amount to be placed into the fund,which is to be called Acqualine, is unsure, there havebeen suggestions of as much as $1 billion, all of whichwill be raised from private investors.Spitzer has also issued a recent subpoena to St PaulTravellers, requesting documentation and informationabout the reporting of workers’ compensationpremiums. The Hartford Financial Services Group wasquestioned over this matter also, but both companieshave refused to elaborate, outlining only that theywere co-operating with Spitzer’s office.According to the Wall Street Journal, a top lawyer forinsurer AIG warned the company’s chief executive in1992 that the reporting of workers compensationpremiums was ‘permeated with illegality’.The company then allegedly booked some of thepremiums as coming from general liability policies, toreduce certain state assessments that are based onpremium volume. It is undetermined whether thispractice being more widespread in the industry is atthe root of Spitzer’s concern.

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Allianz in radicalreorganisation

Allianz, Germany’s largest insurance group, hasannounced a radical structure transformation.Having come from boardroom machinations acrossGermany, through cross-shareholdings and shareddirectorships five years ago, few would havepredicted its current move forward. In what is ahuge streamlining operation, it is to pioneer a newEuropean company structure – a move that createsa new legal framework and avoids the companyhaving to adopt different forms in each jurisdictionin the European Union (EU). Such a move alsosees it claim to be the most international businesson the continent. The company, which is to call itself SocietasEuropea, or SE Allianz, is staging a €5.7 billion($7.05 billion) buy-out of its main Italian subsidiaryRiunione Adriatica di Sicurta SpA (RAS), a move thatwill enable it to behave as one company across theentire EU. According to Paul Achleitner, chieffinancial officer at Allianz: “We think it sends a verystrong signal that even though our headquarters arein Munich, we are a European player and we usethat base to compete globally.” This move will makecross-border acquisitions more efficient as well asstreamlining its corporate governance and reducingred tape. Although a very important milestone, itstill runs the danger of becoming an operationalmillstone. Allianz shares fell more than three percent as it moved to raise up to €2 billion ($2.5billion) in fresh equity capital to finance the RASdeal. Moreover, losses from Hurricane Katrina havebeen reported by Allianz to be as much as €470million, affecting net income by €300 million –nonetheless, it maintained its full-year profit targets.

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FirstAssist returnsto core businessLeading health and wellbeing services provider,FirstAssist, is selling its private medical insurance armof the business to Standard Life AssuranceCompany. The latter has boosted its own portfolioand increased its number of customers for itssubsidiary company, Standard Life HealthcareLimited, to 650,000 with this acquisition. Tim Ablett, chief executive of First Assist, hasdubbed the sale a collaborative venture. He stated:“This sale gives FirstAssist the opportunity toaccelerate development of its health and wellbeingpropositions which have been at the heart of ourbusiness strategy since the management buy out in2003.” FirstAssist will now be able to focus solely onits travel and assistance arms of the business. Theacquisition is completed in the first quarter of 2006,subject to FSA approval.

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INSURANCEMATTERS 13

Guarding against terrorism lossesThe recent National Symposium on the Future ofTerrorism Risk Insurance has created a debateamong insurers. Aon is the first insurer to comeforward, insisting that the private insurance marketwill not be able to operate properly, without someform of public backstop against catastrophic terrorlosses. Aon believes that the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act2002 (TRIA), although notperfect, went a long waytowards providing theterrorism insurancemarket with tremendousbenefits, in terms ofincreasing capacity anddecreasing the price ofterrorism coverage. Vicepresident of Aon PropertySyndication, Aaron Davis,commented: “Insurance isa lynchpin in anyeconomy recoveryfollowing a catastropheloss.” Davis went on toemphasise that the lessinsurance risk transfer, thegreater exposure therewas to the generaleconomy. Much of theeconomic burden will fallupon governments,particularly if there is a large percentage ofuninsured. Thus, it seems to makes sense, in thelight of escalating terrorism risks, for thepublic/private partnership that emerged after 9/11 tobe further developed until such time as a privatesolution can be created. Aon has already witnessed a number of commercialclients opting for terrorism cover in their propertyinsurance policies, as well as a substantial increase inpricing. Due to limited facilities however, many

commercial interests will not be able to secure anyterrorism coverage at all, thus current capacity isvery limited. Aon Re, the company’s reinsurancebrokerage group, has put forward its proposedframework of a solution. It is a proposal thatinvolves the creation of a privately funded, federallymandated ‘facility’ and bonding process that wouldsupport insurers’ ability to provide adequate and

affordable terrorism coverage. Itslong-term solution, whichproposes significant federalgovernment legislative action, isoutlined in the following keyprinciples:• Facility will be structured tofund up to two $40 billion events.• US Government to attach inexcess of $40 billion up to $100billion, with losses above $100billion to be reviewed bycongress.• Losses up to $40 billion inexcess of cash accumulated in thefacility will be funded throughissuance of tax-exempt bonds.• Facility will be tax exempt.• Facility to provide 95 per centquota-share reinsurance coverageon covered losses up to a totalindustry loss of $40 billion.• Losses covered by the Facility

will be above a reasonable industry and companylevel threshold from a foreign or domestic terrorismevent.• The pool will cover all commercial and personallines of insurance.Byron Ehrhart, president of Aon Re Services, is ofthe belief that none of the plan requirements areoutside the realm of possibility. Although a long-term solution, many are key features of both TRIAand other public/private services.

AIG goes it alone inChinaAmerican International Group Inc. (AIG) isn’tlooking for a joint-venture partner in China, chiefexecutive Martin Sullivan has insisted, and thecompany plans to continue expanding its whollyowned insurance operations in the country. AIG has been allowed to own 100 per cent of itslocal Chinese operations – while other foreigninsurers are required to operate through jointventures with local firms. The concession wasnegotiated manyyears ago andAIG was allowedto keep it evenafter standardterms for allforeign insurerswere imposed in2001, whenChina joined theWorld TradeOrganization.“We would liketo expand ourbranchoperations on awholly ownedbasis,” Sullivansaid. “That’s ourstrategy at thepresent moment.” AIG’s plans are, however, controversial. Europeaninsurers argue that the WTO deal means AIG cankeep its existing branches, but that any future oneswould have to be in the same 50 per cent-ownedjoint-venture structure required for other insurers.But at the moment, AIG seems to be movingforward alone. AIG has eight life insurance branchlicenses and three general insurance licenses inChina, Sullivan said, and hopes for more.

Lost property hits$3.5 billionUK tourists on holiday appear to show little regardfor their own personal property, returning for homefrom summer breaks with significant items missing.The new research from Lloyds TSB Insuranceshows that personal belongings totalling as much as£2 billion are being left behind in tourist destinations– negligent packing has been blamed. Moreover, 15per cent of these travellers are uninsured. Of those questioned, 56 per cent said they’d left

belongings abroad, the mostcommon forgotten item beingtoiletries (25 per cent), clothes (23per cent), sunglasses (17 per cent)and jewellery (five per cent). Themain theory suggested for thisproblem is the reluctance ofpeople wanting to admit that theholiday is over and they have toreturn home soon. Phil Loney,managing director, Lloyds TSBInsurance, advises: “The postholiday blues are hard enough tohandle, without the added stress oflost property. Leaving behind theodd toothbrush isn’t so much of aproblem, but forgetting morevaluable items can cause realheadaches.” Bad planning is blamedfor such losses, with a simple

checklist providing a sensible alternative. Ultimately, travel insurance is your best bet againstloss as even the most diligent bag-packer can’tguarantee to remember everything, and it’sreassuring to know it can be replaced. Lost propertylockers in tourist hotspots worldwide areoverflowing once again, but very few people evertry to reclaim their personal belongings – less thana fifth even make an attempt to retrieve the itemsthey’ve left behind.

Fortis bags a little extraFortis Insurance, in the UK, has recently secured thetravel insurance business for Holiday Extras. Thedeal follows an extensive appraisal of offerings andcapabilities within the insurance market, and buildson an established working relationship.On 1 October, Fortis began underwriting travelpolicies for some of Holiday Extras’ accounts, such

as tour operator Travelsphere, and from 1December, these will also be distributed via anetwork of over 1,500 travel agents and touroperators. The company further announced theacquisition of OutRight, a solutions provider focusedon delivering intermediated solutions to the UKaffinity, brand assurance and broking sectors.

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COMPANYBRIEF14

Kanetix systemoffers Internet savvyA national online insurancemarketplace in Canada,kanetix, has introduced TravelUnderwriters to its list of travelinsurance providers. Thekanetix system allows users toobtain customised quotes thatconsider factors such as thenumber of people travelling,travel dates and frequency oftravel. Within minutes,consumers can view side-by-side policy comparisons andview policy details and costs.The application for coveragecan then be completed onlineor over the telephone.The move is reflective of theever-growing trend in Internetadvertising and an expandingbreed of Internet-savvyshoppers. Online insurancecomparison sites are becomingmore popular around theworld, as people become used to the simple andswift method by which to purchase cover whentraveling away from home.

Solid as a rockAlso getting on board the online sales boom is RockInsurance in the UK. The company has re-vampedits website to provide travel agents, tour operatorsand brokers the tools they need to sell travelinsurance online, including the ability to issuepolicies, access reports of their online sales and findthe answers to common questions. The system isbacked up by a dedicated technical support team.Now in its fifth year of trading, the company seemsto be going strong. Recent account wins with travelagent network Travel Counsellors and cruise retailerCruise Control have meant the additionalrecruitment of call centre staff to support theexisting team in their fulfillment of travel insurancecontracts sold through the travel trade.

Crystal clear at AIGInsurance provider AIG Europe (UK) Limited (AIG)

has joined forces withindependent Lloyd’s brokerJohn Holman and SonsLimited to launch a newtravel insurance productavailable to brokers througha high-tech extranet system.The Websure extranettechnology, developed inresponse to the FinancialServices Authority’s rules oninsurance sales, is reportedlyvery easy to use, guiding thebroker through the necessaryregulatory steps to selling apolicy and allowing key factsdocuments and policywordings and certificates tobe downloaded and printedat the point of sale.The obvious benefit of thesystem is the elimination ofthe traditional pad-basedfulfillment method, whichmeans brokers do not need

to store stocks of pre-printed material, and it alsodoes away with the need for brokers to re-keyinformation onto computer systems, streamliningthe sales process.Additionally, AIG has been working withInsureandGo to obtain the Plain English CampaignCrystal Mark for the travel policy is provides forthem. The Crystal Mark is the Plain EnglishCampaign’s seal of approval to say a document is asclear as possible for its intended audience, takinginto account language and design. To enhance thetravel product further, assistance providers FirstAssist and AIG International Services have beenappointed to jointly provide the emergency medicalassistance of the policy.

Hi-techluggagereunitedCustomers purchasingtheir holiday cover withAmerican Express TravelInsurance, are beingoffered a permanentsolution to theproblem of lostluggage. By givingevery customer hi-techluggage labels, the companyis making an innovative effortto reunite lost luggage with its rightful owner.Those taking out an annual travel policy are issuedwith a set of i-Trak luggage labels that carry apersonal barcode. In the event that luggage is lost,whoever finds the luggage can contact the owner byemail, text or the airline’s own Telex system.

Doha Bank launchestravel insurance

Doha Bank has launched anew travel insurance

product that coversmedical expenses and

hospitalisation, aswell as many other

losses. QatarGeneralInsurance and

ReinsuranceCompany underwrites

the travel insurance, andthe traveller can buy a policy up to a maximumperiod of 90 days. Annual multi-trip policies are also available tofrequent travellers and senior executives. R Seetharaman, acting general manager, said thatthis policy can cover travel anywhere in the worldincluding the US and Canada and is accepted byEmbassies for Schengen Visa requirement.Moreover, it is an unusual policy in its willingnessto cover travellers up to the age of 85.Manoj Kumar, head of bancassurance,commented: “The insurance policy, however, issubject to deductibles that are different fordifferent age groups.” Other terms andconditions apply.

A study carried out in Copenhagen has revealed thatholidays could be bad for your health – if yourholiday consists of heavy drinking that is. Researchersin the US have discovered evidence to support theexistence of a ‘holiday heart syndrome’.For those who believe that heavy drinking is anintegral part of a relaxing break, by which scientistsmean more than 35 alcoholic drinks a week, theycould be causing themselves atrial fibrillation: a rapid,irregular heartbeat. This is what happens when theheart’s upper chambers contract too quickly. Theheartbeat becomes not only irregular, but also lesseffective at pumping blood from the heart. In themost extreme cases, the blood may pool and formclots which can travel to the brain and cause astroke.Atrial fibrillation gives a person nearly a fivefoldincrease in their risk of stroke. The leading author ofa paper written on this subject, Kenneth Mukamal,

commented: “Holiday heartsyndrome refers to heartrhythm disturbances, whichdevelop while a person is onvacation or away from work,and appears to be linked toheavier than normal alcoholconsumption.”The study was carried out on16,415 individuals with anaverage age of 50, between1976 and 1994. Theresearchers considered factorssuch as smoking, education,income, body mass index andconsumption of beer, wineand spirits and 1,017 cases ofatrial fibrillation werediscovered.

Holiday drinking may cause early death

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HEALTHMATTERS16

Not so long ago, horror stories about the deaththreat from deep vein thrombosis (DVT), dubbed‘economy class syndrome’, were commonplace.Now the furore has died down, it is necessary toconsider its effect rationally.DVT is the formation of a blood clot in a veindeep within the leg, as a result of prolongedimmobility. It has been suggested by some studiesthat as many as one passenger in 100 suffers DVTas a result of a long-haul flight. DVT can be hardto spot as there are no symptoms, although onoccasion it will cause the leg to become swollen,red or painful. In the most serious situation a clot can break away and travel up to the lungswhere it can cause a fatal blockage (pulmonaryembolism).Sensible precautions, however, are all you needto reduce the risk of DVT. These precautions fallinto two main categories: physical and chemical.Physical mobility is the best preventative action,getting up and walking around every hour or sowill help. Even wiggling your feet around orpressing the balls of the feet down while raisingthe heel is enough to make a difference. Elasticcompression stockings are worth the fashion fauxpas as they really can help too.On the chemical front, what you eat and drinkcan affect the risk. There is debate as to theeffectiveness of aspirin; some say that taking a lowdose of it just before take-off will thin the blood.Others disagree. The UK Health Departmentsaid: “There is no evidence that aspirin is effectivein preventing travel-related DVT.”You can never go wrong with water though. Itkeeps you hydrated and will get you up to use thetoilet from time to time. Willpower may be inorder to heed official advice, as alcohol is said todehydrate you. Apparently, though, drinking beerrather than wine could offer a compromise.

Simple precautionsto avoid DVT

Bats have been pinpointed by ateam of international scientists asthe original hosts of the deadlysevere acute respiratory syndromevirus (SARS). SARS emerged insouthern China in 2002, infectingabout 8,000 people and killingmore than 700. The results of arecent study suggested that SARSis loose in the wild and could re-emerge to infect humans. Theupside of this finding is that nowthe authorities know the originalanimal host they can try tointerrupt the transmission of thevirus before it infects people.Peter Daszak, an author of thestudy, has said that in order toprevent another outbreak of

SARS, the Chinese must ‘cut down the use of thebat for food and medicine’. However, Klaus Stohr, avirologist at the World Health Organization, hasstated that despite this being an important finding,many questions remain unanswered. For example, itis still unknown how long the virus stays in bats orwhat specific genetic changes it undergoes. It is alsounclear whether the virus has to be passed throughother intermediate animals before humans cancontract it. It does, however, take scientists one-stepfurther towards determining the outbreak of SARS.Early research highlighted masked palm civets(weasel-like animals) as the source of SARS. LastSeptember further breakthroughs reported thediscovery of a SARS-like virus in Hong Kong bats.The latest study backs up that finding and stronglyindicates that the original SARS host was thehorseshoe bat, which is eaten and used fortraditional medicine in China.

Scientists come closer to SARS origin

Since August, 596 people have been admitted fortreatment in Mpumalanga, Delmas, in South Africa,due to a typhoid outbreak. Netcare Travel Clinic’sDr Andrew Jameson has advised travellers visitingthe area to get immunised against the fever. “Thereal risk for the average person is pretty low, but ifpeople are visiting Delmas, they should beimmunised,” he said.He went on to confirm that the cases of typhoidreported in parts of Gauteng were probably as aresult of workers commuting from Delmas andpreparing food in the province. He emphasised thathe was quite confident that there is no risk thatthese particular cases are connected with water.

Typhoid alert inSouth Africa

It appears that scientists at Imperial College London,UK, have overcome the long-term difficulty ofrecognising male mosquitoes from female ones, bymaking genetically modified (GM) versions of theinsect. Whether such advances will be made in time totackle the current protestations of low drug orders formalaria-prone areas is another question.The team, led by Andrea Crisanti, believes that itsgenetically modified mosquitoes could soon bereleased into the wild in an attempt to combat malaria.Previous attempts to release sterile mosquitoes intothe wild have been hampered by an inability todistinguish the males, which do not bite people. Testinghas continued however, as this practice has been triedand tested for other species, such as the screwwormfly, which was eradicated from the US, Mexico andCentral America.The team has added a gene that makes the testicles ofthe male mosquitoes fluorescent, allowing the scientiststo distinguish and easily separate them from thefemales.The plan is that these males will be bred, sterilised andreleased into the wild in the hope that they will breedwith the wild female mosquitoes but produce no

offspring, wiping out mosquito populations in targetareas within weeks.Depending upon the success of this practice, the nextstage will be to scale-up the technique, providingmillions of GM insects needed to make a large-scalerelease effective. Professor Crisanti has said that thispractice will be able to be applied long-term to allspecies of mosquito. Moreover, because the new GMmosquitoes are sterilised, they pose no significant riskby being released into the environment.This comes as promising news, following the latestreports of unexpectedly low orders for a pioneeringmalaria drug – although the chances of the tests beingready in time to combat such failure are slim. Swisspharmaceutical group Novartis said it had onlyreceived orders for 13 million treatments of Coartem,its artemisinin combination therapy (ACT), despitehealth expert estimates that realistic number necessitiesfall closer to 30 million. Such news has forecast thepossible deaths of thousands of people unnecessarilyfrom malaria in the coming months. This shortfallhighlights failings in the complex internationalmechanisms set up to fund, procure and supplytreatments for malaria.

Genetically modified mosquitoes maysave thousands of lives

Following last year’s pattern for West Nile cases in theUS, California has led the country this season with the number of cases in the state topping 800 inOctober 2005.Sacramento County still leads all of the counties inCalifornia with a total of 170 cases. Only two otherstates have witnessed more than 100 cases thisseason – South Dakota, with 208, and Illinois, with 172.Despite a continuous climb in numbers, state officialshave confirmed that the pace of the disease is slowing.“It appears the peak transmission season was the endof August, as West Nile activity is tapering off,” said DrBicki Dramer, chief of the vector-borne diseasesection of the state Department of Health Services.When dealing with West Nile virus, prevention is thebest bet. Fighting mosquito bites reduces the risk ofgetting the disease. Symptoms can include high fever,headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma,tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss,numbness and paralysis.The federal Centres for Disease Control andPrevention reported in October a total of 1,804human cases of West Nile virus in 2005, more thanthe total of 1,784 reported in all of 2004. So far thisyear, 52 people have died from West Nile in the US,16 of them in California.

West Nile caseskeep rising in US

The Colorado River, which attracts about 25,000visitors a year on its river trips, witnessed a seriousbout of food sickness in recent months. NorthArizona authorities are still trying to determine thesource of the tainted food that has sickened about100 people on the boat trips. The gastrointestinalillness has affected tourists on 12 different trips withfive different tour companies, all based in Utah.According to Adam Kramer, a public-health specialistfor the National Park Service, a sample of analysedfood has tested positive for norovirus, not a good signfor the Grand Canyon river runners. An outbreak ofnorovirus, a group of viruses that cause stomach flutypically lasting for 24 to 48 hours, caused the NFL’sArizona Cardinals to move their entire training camplast July. Most of the victims appeared to have gotten sick atthe beginning of the trips, some of which last for twoweeks if the parties travel the more than 200 milesfrom the beginning point at Lees Ferry to Lake Mead.One tourist’s medical complications became so severethat he had to be airlifted from the river inside theCanyon. The investigations so far have been focusingon meat products in warehouses owned by the river-tour companies, many of which rely on placing food in containers in the river water tomaintain its preservation.

100 stricken withfood sickness

Brazil has reported over 100,000 cases of Denguefever in 2005, with an increase in 19 states. Thesecretariat of Health Surveillance has reported thatafter two years of decreasing results, the numbers areon the up again. From January through to May 2005, 79,674 caseshave been reported, 30 per cent more than the sameperiod in 2004. Eight states have shown an overallreduction compared to 2004, but 19 states haveshown an increase. The autochthonous circulation of

dengue virus stereotypes one, two and three has beenidentified in 24 states or federal units. At the moment72 cases of DHF with five deaths have beenconfirmed. What is disturbing about this increase is thatthis occurrence has taken place before the traditionaldengue season, which is during the rains in November,December and January. Moreover, dengue type fourhas not been seen in Brazil since the 1980’s, but iscurrently circulating in Venezuela, French Guiana,Colombia and Peru, all neighbouring Brazil.

Dengue fever on the increase

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HEALTHMATTERS 17

On 21 September some 100 people met tocelebrate the International Flight Rescue ServiceAustria’s (IRFA) first 25years. Founded 1980 inKrems, Austria, the IRFAstarted out offeringambulance flights andmedical escorts oncommercial flights, butthe main business grewand after a time it beganto provide medicalassistance,predominantly inAustria.Today, it handles medicalcases worldwide and also provides road assistance innearly every European country. The celebrationstook place in the monastery Stift Göttweig, near

Krems, and saw many representatives from differentcountries, including Austrian ministries and

international politicians,pilots, doctors andmore.After a salutation by DrChristian Steindl, IFRAmanaging and medicaldirector, many peoplespoke about theirexperiences in the last25 years of IFRA.The company was thecreation of ChristianSteindl, medical doctorand pilot, and was

founded in December 1979. “I wanted to connectmy hobby ‘flying’ with my profession and the resultwas the air ambulance,” he commented.

IFRA celebrates 25th anniversary

AIR AMBULANCENEWS18

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Natural disasters are hitting the headlines a lotthese days, and getting casualties from thedisaster zone is the highest priority among rescueteams. Robin Gauldie asks whether theaeromedical insurance sector should be turning itscollective mind to acquiring the capability to uselarge rotorcraft

Passing through Lima’s international airport recently,my eye was caught by a flotilla of a dozen ex-Sovietbloc military helicopters parked next to the cargoterminal. Among them was the largest rotorcraft Ihave ever seen – a giant of a helicopter that lookedcapable of lifting King Kong. Prone as Peru is to earthquakes, volcanic eruptionsand El Nino floods, its air force needs a chopperfleet that can be used in a rescue and med-evac role(it’s also useful for theoccasional bout ofsabre-rattling whenPeru is on the outswith its northernneighbour Ecuador,with which it had aseries of borderskirmishes in the1990s).While I was in Peru,around 4,000 peoplewere made homelessby earth tremors inthe southernMoquegua region – anevent that would nothave made big worldheadlines in any case,and which was quicklyeclipsed by theKashmir quake.In Kashmir, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’scalls for aid highlighted the role of helicopters ingetting help to crisis areas in a hurry: not just thesmall rotorcraft that are employed in an airambulance role in smaller incidents, but a flotilla ofmilitary heavy-lifters. The response from the US wasto promise just eight military helicopters to help insuccoring some 2.5 million people made homelessby the quake.As the relief effort progressed, disaster relief teamshad around 30 helicopters available, but estimatedthat they needed at least 100 to cope with theemergency.In an age of mass travel to areas that can becomenatural or political disaster zones – whether that isPhuket, Sri Lanka, Kashmir or New Orleans – it istragically possible to imagine a need for aircraft thatcan perform mass med-evacs of large numbers oftourist casualties. Does it mean that the state willbecome a larger supplier of such services –potentially in competition with the private sector?Arguably, only governments have the cash or the

infrastructure to maintain, crew and keep inreadiness large numbers of large rescues helicopters.Equally, mobilising Air Force, Coast Guard, or othersearch and rescue helicopters from North Americaor Europe to a rescue theatre in Asia, Africa orSouth America requires resources that are currentlyonly available to the military. But, as the Americanresponse to Musharraf’s pleas for help may show,the military may have other calls on those resources.The US has plenty of helicopters in Iraq and oncarriers and bases around the Gulf. Unfortunately,right now they are mostly earmarked for use in Iraq.Disasters like Katrina, the 2005 tsunami, and theKashmir earthquake are not going to go away – butnor will tourists be permanently deterred fromvisiting holiday paradises that can turn in hours,minutes or even seconds into disaster zones.

Geologists now claim thatthe entire Himalayan region– including popular touristzones in India, Pakistan,Nepal, Bhutan and as fareast as Burma – hasbecome highly active andcould experience a futureearthquake of 10 or moreon the Richter scale. Evenfamiliar destinations close tohome are not immune:France in recent years hasseen disastrous forest firesand a heat wave that wasblamed for up to 10,000deaths. Turkey and Greecehave both suffered lethalearthquakes. Italy has itsbrood of active volcanoes. Arguably, it is only a matter

of time until huge numbers of tourists again findthemselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.Imagine, for example, an earthquake in the Greekislands at the peak of the summer tourism season.Perhaps governments should be seeking to beef uptheir airborne search and rescue capability. Perhapsdiverting some money away from blue-sky militaryresearch into outré weapons and into tried andtested emergency management fleets might be agood idea. And perhaps the aeromedical sectorshould be considering ways of developing jointinitiatives with government to share its expertise andeven make some imaginative contribution towardssharing the cost burden, providing that government-owned aircraft can also be made available to theprivate aeromedical sector too. Downtime costs governments just as much as itcosts the private sector – more, probably, given biggovernment’s notoriously spendthrift ways.Maximizing aircraft use, and charging the privatesector to use government aircraft could be one wayof defraying the cost and expanding capability ofdealing with large-scale emergencies.

A call for larger rotorcraft

Devon AirAmbulance,which used asecondhelicopter forthe summer,has recentlyannouncedthat it is to

stay on fulltime,making

Devon theonly singlecounty in the UK to have two air ambulances. It isdue to the amount of support received that they

have been able to keep hold of the helicopterafter their temporary period.They are very proud about this news,

especially in light of the influx of holidaymakers intoDevon during the summer period. New buildingsare being constructed in order to accommodateboth police and air ambulance crews, which saves agreat deal of costs for the charity.

Devon gets secondhelicopter

Due to an ever-increasing demand for its services,Luxembourg Air Rescue (LAR), an independent,non-profit organisation, has purchased a thirdLearjet 35 to complement its fleet. The new Learjet35 is one of the youngest 35s on the market and isbeing upgraded withthe latest Raisebeckupgrade, whichwill give theaircraft higherspeeds, longer range andless fuel consumption.The second advantage of the newLearjet is that it will be equipped with adouble stretcher. With the ever-increasingamount of airline companies refusingstretcher flights, LAR willbe able to take onecritical and oneless criticalpatient on thesame flight, thusreducing costs forassistance companies.

Luxembourg buysthird aircraft

In what comes as sad news to the air ambulanceindustry, the intensive care helicopter stationed atStuttgart airport crashed during a mission on 28September, near Weilheim/Teck, Germany. The helicopter, Christoph 51, operated by the DRF(Deutsche Rettungsflugwacht e.V./German AirRescue), was on its way from Gerlingen, nearStuttgart, to Munich. A 28-year-old female patient, a

47-year-old pilot, a 51-year-old physician, as well asa 44-year-old paramedic were on board and all fourwere killed in the accident. The experts of theGerman Federal Bureau of Aircraft AccidentsInvestigation could not find any evidence referring toa technical defect of the crashed helicopter. Thecause of the accident is still unknown and policeinvestigations are ongoing.

Tragedy strikes medical air industry

Governments should beseeking to beef up their

airborne search andrescue capability.

Diverting money awayfrom blue-sky militaryresearch into outré

weapons and tried andtested emergency

management fleets mightbe a good idea.

TRAVELMATTERS20

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

Castro slams cruiseshipsOutspoken Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, haswhipped up another hurricane in the Caribbean bysaying out loud what many island nations onlywhisper – that cruise ships bring little in the wayof benefits. David Ing reports on Castro’sdisenchantment with the cruise industry

Having seen tourism grow to become Cuba’sbiggest money earner – with two million foreignarrivals a year and almost US$2.5 billion in receipts– the commander in chief has accused the cruisecompanies of filling the country’s ports with ‘rubbish’and, by staying only a few hours, failing tocontribute to the country’s coffers.A recent government resolution declared that all the‘goods, equipment and installations used for offering(cruise) services will revert to the domain of the state’– a statement that has been widely interpreted as thebeginning of the end for cruise ship visits. Tourism,especially cruising, used to be big business for theisland until the 1959 revolution and the consequentfallout with its then major market, the US.

The new communist regime turned its back on suchcapitalist caprices until the 1990s when, as his oldallies began to disappear, Castro accepted tourismas a necessary evil to bolster his country’sfloundering economy. Cruising returned in 1998,when the Italian-Cuban group Cubanco was given aconcession to administer dock facilities.While the island’s biggest foreign cruise operator,Spain’s Pullmantur, is continuing to operate, sourcessuggest that although contracts will be honoured,cruising appears to be on the path of extinction.Cuba’s tourism minister, Manuel Marrero, has triedto calm troubled waters – for European operatorsat least – by saying that relations with Pullmantur‘are very professional’ and that they are ‘ready tolisten to offers’ from German and UK companies.But, he added: “As a philosophy, we are not goingto support our tourism with cruising. If we arebuilding hotels, it’s for people to stay in them.”

Middle East wantsmore travel initiatives

Tourism ministers of Israel, Jordan, Egypt and thePalestinian Authority are to request that the US lifts thetravel advisory it has currently issued to citizens,warning against travel to the Middle East. The ministers will also be requesting their respectiveheads of state to launch pro-active tourism campaignsin the region. In a historic meeting, which saw thefour ministers meeting in Hurghada, Egypt, all partiesannounced their intention to work towards promotingintegrated tourism between the countries. Due tocertain issues over past agreements, namely the ParisAgreement from the 1990s, which contained anobligation to accelerate the development of the GazaAirport and Gaza strip tourism, the parties didn’tmanage to sign a declaration of understandings butnow are in a favourable position to do so if such anagreement were revalidated. Between the months of January and August 2005,approximately 450,000 Israelis plus 160,000 touristsentered and departed through Egypt’s Taba terminal,and it is estimated that approximately two milliontourists will visit Israel until the end of the year, a 33per cent increase on last year.

Japan to introduceTaiwan visa waiverRelations between Taiwan and Japan look set toimprove, despite criticism from China, with Japanplanning to introduce a permanent visa waiverprogramme for Taiwanese tourists visiting the country. Although the two countries don’t enjoy officialdiplomatic relations, the Japanese House ofCouncillors seconded a bill of revisions to Japan’slaw on the management of entry into the nation,and qualifications for refugee status. Such a bill willsee the visa-free perk that was initially introduced toencourage Taiwanese tourists to visit the AiichiExposition, on global harmony, which ended 25September, expanded into a permanent system forvisa-free entry for Taiwan citizens generally. Taiwanese tourists visiting Japan for up to 90 days topromote tourism and other exchanges between thetwo sides will now easily be able to do so,according to the Foreign Ministry. It is not clear,however, whether this waiver system willautomatically cover private visits to Japan byTaiwanese politicians.

Airline profits blownaway by stormsTraditionally, the third quarter, July–September, isthe best period for the airlines to turn a profit dueto the high volume of travel. Unfortunately,hurricanes Katrina and Rita have put an end to theslim hopes that US airlines had for a profitable thirdquarter. Disrupted storm flights and jet fuel prices that havebeen pushed to previously unimaginable levels arethe resulting factor for lack of profit. The carriersthat were on target, previous to 29 August, for aprofitable third quarter are Southwest, JetBlue,Continental, American and AirTran. But the effectsof the storms on flight schedules and energymarkets have reduced the list of likely money-makers to just Southwest, the discount leader. Thiswill see an extension to its streak of profitablequarters dating as far back as 1991. As the marketleader in New Orleans, they used to run 57 dailyflights in the area; now service has resumed withjust two flights operating daily. They hope to see agradual increase, as conditions in the area start toimprove. The three Texas-based carriers –American, Continental and Southwest – are themost vulnerable to widespread schedule disruptionsbecause of their volume of flights in Gulf Coast citiesand in Texas. Whether operating widely in the Gulf Coast regionor not, carriers have been slammed by the stormsfinancially, due to fuel considerations rather than justdisruptions. JetBlue, the New York-baseddiscounter, has been given a final push into the redfor the quarter by Hurricane Rita, according to CEODavid Neeleman. According to consulting firm OilPrice Information Service, the price of Gulf Coast jetfuel bumped up to about $2.25 a gallon amidworries about Rita disrupting refining and pipelineoperations. The price just before Katrina hit was$1.89 a gallon. Since 2000, US airlines have lostabout $35 billion.

Spanair gets readyto battleSpain’s second biggest airline, Spanair, hasannounced plans to expand its domestic network, inan attempt to head off future incursions into themarket by budget carriers. David Ing looks at theairline’s proposal to beat off the competition

The company, controlled by the owners of theMarsans travel group and majority owned by SAS,says it hopes to grow its share of the domesticpassenger market to 30 per cent by the end of 2008.To achieve this, it aims to launch a series of transversalroutes that avoid passengers having to change planesin Madrid. With both easyJet and Ryanair eyeing upthe Spanish internal market, Spanair said its objective isto ‘be ahead of them, flying point to point’.Ireland-based Ryanair said earlier this year that it waslooking at a network that will link Girona, in thenortheastern region of Catalonia, and the new DonQuijote airport, being built near Ciudad Real, with theother 12 Spanish airports where it currently operates.The Irish airline plans to be one of the launchcustomers for this new airport, some 200 kilometres

south of Madrid, when it opens in the secondhalf of 2006. A direct high-speed AVE trainconnection at the airport will enable passengersto reach the central Atocha station in Madrid inan hour.In a new study on the impact of budgetcarriers, the Institute of Tourism Studies (IET)reports that they have already carved out asubstantial share of the country’s inboundtourist market. Last year, they brought in 14million passengers – equivalent to 29 per centof all arrivals.With annual growth for budget carriers leapingby a third – compared with a one per cent fallfor traditional airlines – the UK’s easyJet andGerman airline Air Berlin were surpassed only

by Iberia in the number of passengers they carried.

NYC subway terrorfinally tackled

Despite being awardedfederal funds of nearly$600 million over threeyears ago to developsecurity systems, theMetropolitanTransportationAuthority (MTA) US,has used barely afraction of this grant.Up to now, the MTA’spost-9/11 strategyagainst terrorism in thesubway system hasbeen based upon theawareness of 7.7

million harried passengers. A poster campaignthroughout the subways displayed the message: “Ifyou see something, say something.” The majority ofthese commuters, however, could not make aphone call to report something in the subwaythrough lack of reception. Following heavy criticisms for delaying furtheractions, the New York transit authority, in a bid toharden itself, has unveiled two programmes – a$212-million surveillance system and a plan to wirethe city’s subway platforms for mobile phoneservice. Despite criticism on the expense of such amove, and the added risk (it was a mobile phonethat was believed to have detonated the Madridbombs of March 2004), the overruling consensus isthat cellular service on subway platforms will helpNew Yorkers report suspicious activity.Furthermore, ‘cell yell’ (overloud chat happy mobilephone users) will be avoided because service wouldcut out once trains enter a tunnel.New York is not alone in exploring mobile phoneservice; London’s Underground is also planning trialsof mobile phone services on its system, the Tube.

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TRAVELMATTERS 21

Europe says yes toin-flight callsContrary to the decision made by the US andreported in last month’s issue, (ITIJ 57, October2005, In-flight mobile phonetalk quashed), twoEuropean airlines have convinced the FederalAviation Administration (FAA) to let them goahead with in-flight mobile phone testing. British carrier bmi and Portugese TAP, areproposing to start trials of in-flight mobile calls onshort-haul flights as early as 2006, subject toregulatory approval. The planes, which will bethe first to allow passengers to make and receivecalls with their own cell phones while onboard,will give OnAir the chance to assess its servicebefore its general release. Technology companyOnAir is to provide the testing facility and GeorgeCooper chief executive has allayed initialconcerns: “During those three months [oftesting], we’ll be evaluating how it’s going, whatthe usage is, how we handle the crew issues and so on.” OnAir’s system will be used by TAP on its Airbus321 model and by bmi on its Airbus 320s, bothsingle-aisle planes primarily used for traffic withinwestern Europe. Passengers will be allowed toturn their phones on after the plane reaches10,000 feet, at the same time as other electronicdevices are allowed, such as laptops and portablemusic players. In response to alleged fears thatthey might interfere with a plane’s navigationsystem, OnAir explains that its facility is based inthe plane, which it says ensures cell phones andother devices operate at lower transmissionpower and avoid affecting the avionics. The otherchallenge would be persuading other passengersof the benefit, rather than the ‘nuisance’ factorposed by a cabin of chattering passengers. OnAirresponded that it had the technology to restrictthe service to a text-only service at certainprescribed quiet times during the flight.

Airlines furious overcompensation lawsThe international airline industry’s campaign tooverturn the European Union scheme forimproved compensation to travellers sufferedserious setbacks when it was rejected recently.The rules, which came into effect from February,are designed to compensate air travellers whoare denied boarding or whose flights arecancelled or seriously delayed. The airlines,however, have claimed that they should not beexpected to pay compensation for events outsidetheir control, such as delays caused by badweather or strikes. The arguments, put forward by the International AirTransport Association and the European Low FaresAirlines Association (Elfaa), were rejected in theirentirety by the advocate-general. He claimed therewas ‘no doubt’’ the obligations imposed on aircarriers were a ‘suitable and proportionate’ meansof reducing the trouble and inconvenience topassengers resulting from delays or cancellations. In response to accusations ofdiscrimination between airlines and other modes oftransport, he said that the rules on consumerprotection must be of general applicationirrespective of the price paid for the ticket.Elfaa, which still hopes to annul the legislation,state that the regulation had ‘created hugeconfusion’ among consumers since itsintroduction and this had been increased bymisleading information issued by the EuropeanCommission. Under the current regulation,compensation for denied boarding variesaccording to the length of the flight from €250for flights under 1,500 kilometres to a maximum

of €600 for flights of over 3,500 kilometres.If the airline can prove that cancellation wascaused due to unavoidable or extraordinarycircumstances then paying out compensation canbe avoided.

Gap year travel isbig businessThe gap year market is still a relatively newphenomenon, having only come into commonpractice in the early 1990s. It is, however, an ever-

growing market, no longer reserved forstudents. Recent research from Mintel’s Traveland Tourism Analyst shows that older ‘careergappers’ and ‘pre-retirement travellers’ arebreaking into the gap-year mould.According to analysts, the market is wortharound £5 billion, accounting for betweenone and 1.5 million trips a year. Predictionsfor the future show a staggering doubling ofthese figures, so that by 2010, an estimatedtwo million gap-year trips will be made bytravellers from around the world, equalling atotal expenditure of £11 billion. Mintelresearch predicts that it is the oldergenerations of travellers who will provide thisboost to the market as changing workpatterns, from long-life to more portfoliocareers, has enabled a wider number ofpeople to take career breaks between jobs.The changing demographic population hasalso leant to this trend, as increasing numbersof older people in developed countries withimproved health and wealth are finding it

easier to travel just prior to retirement. These50–55 year olds, or ‘denture venturers’ as theyhave been affectionately termed in the industry, areable to take a travel sabbatical now when moneyhas been made and most commitments fulfilled, asopposed to when they were younger when itsimply wasn’t feasible.It is the UK gappers who account for half of allexpenditure within this booming sector – the UKgap-year travel market today compromises ofapproximately one per cent of all UK outboundtrips and around 10 per cent of outbound travelexpenditure.

Shift to airline e-ticketingThe International Air Transport Association aims toconvert the entire airline industry to e-tickets by2007, but there appears to be much disparity in thechange-over.According to a newsurvey, fewer than 20per cent of Europeanairlines have replacedmagnetic strip boardingpasses with bar-codedversions, which can beprinted out bypassengers at home.However, across thewater, 67 per cent ofNorth Americancarriers have made thischange-over. The suggestion is thatby 2007, common-useself-service kiosks willhave become widelydeployed at airportsand will allowpassengers to check inregardless of the airlinethey are flying with. But there still remains onequarter of European Airlines who have not yet evenmoved to electronic ticketing. The survey,commissioned by SITA, the communicationscompany, and Airline Business magazine, shows that63 per cent of North American tickets are bookedonline, while in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region,the respective figures are 24 and 10 per cent. Itgoes on to suggest that by the end of 2007, 44 percent of carriers will offer some form ofcommunication between air and ground, whethershort messaging, e-mail, Internet access or theability to make mobile phone calls.

Natural disasters have become the single biggestrisk both for insurers and policyholders. In thelast issue of ITIJ, we reported on the devastatingeffects of Hurricane Katrina (ITIJ 57, October 2005,The Big Agony), and this month an earthquake inPakistan. Robert Bailey surveys the wreckage

Nobody needs reminding, this year in particular,about the devastating effects of catastrophic naturaldisasters, with the losses from the Asian tsunami aswell as earthquakes and hurricanes elsewhere stillbeing acutely felt.

More and more people are being caught up in agrowing number of natural disasters, the UN’sInternational Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR)says. The number affected this year is likely to runinto hundreds of millions with a record number offatalities. In the 10 years up to October last year,the US alone had experienced 292 disastersresulting in claims totalling $105 billion. ISDR’sdirector Salvano Briceno said: “Not only is theworld globally facing more potential disasters, butincreasing numbers of people are becomingvulnerable to hazards.”

It is also salutary to remember that nature’sawesome power can strike any community and notjust those in exotic places. France’s southeast regionsaw visitor numbers plummet two years ago as aresult of unrelenting forest fires and the Prestige oiltanker disaster that polluted beaches from Bordeauxto Biarritz.The UK village of Boscastle in north Cornwall wasvirtually washed away in a flash flood in 2004.Many parts of Italy lie on a major seismic fault line.In December 1908, a 7.2-magnitude earthquakestruck the Messina-Reggio Calabria region of eastern

and southern Italy killing 123,000 people. Lesserquakes have struck Italy since, and in 2003 therewas substantial volcanic activity on Mount Etna inSicily.

A changing climateMost travellers and insurers have, at least until now,been prepared to take such risks in their stride. Thefrequency and severity of natural disasters, includinghurricanes, windstorms, earthquakes, floods, fires andexplosions, are, after all, inherently unpredictable.But are things changing? Estimates by the Association

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

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International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

The cost of natural disasters

NEWSANALYSIS

of British Insurers show that the worldwide costs ofmajor storms are likely to increase by as much astwo-thirds to a total of $27 billion in an average year.The UK’s Allianz Cornhill estimates that climatechange is increasing the potential of property damageat a rate of two to four per cent a year. CEO AndrewTorrance said: “We agree with scientists who say that,while natural catastrophes cannot be conclusivelylinked to climate change, the severity and frequency ofnatural disasters have increased as a result of achanging climate.”Premiums seem to be heading steadily upwards –certainly if travellers begin to demand more in termsof cancellation cover. Katrina and Rita are being seenas vivid illustrations of the increasing severity of naturalcatastrophes and the complex world of risk thatunderwriters operate in. According to ex-Lloyd’s chiefexecutive Nick Prettejohn, the severity of this year’swindstorm season and Katrina, in particular, will have asignificant bearing on full year results.“The hurricanes are also likely to have the effect ofstemming the softening of rates in a number of classesof business and indeed some rates are nowincreasing,” he added.However, the stark truth is that the amount of loss tothe insurance industry from natural disasters dependsalmost entirely on where the catastrophes occur.Anything major impacting on the US, or othereconomically advanced countries, sounds an alarm.Elsewhere, even if huge loss of life takes place, theimpact is not going to be felt in financial terms purelybecause of the low possession of insurance in certaincommunities.Fortunately for the insurance industry, the claimsarising from the tsunami disaster at the beginning of

2005 have proved much more modest than firstpredicted. Initial estimates by Lloyd’s put its members’losses at £100 million. Munich Re and Swiss Resimilarly estimated modest losses of £69 million and£45 million respectively.As a result, the insurance world, by and large, wasprepared to be flexible in interpretation of exclusionclauses when claims resulting from the tsunami wereconsidered. A strict interpretation of standardexclusion clauses would have seen policies invalidated,since the tsunami, a violent and sudden act of nature,which could not have been foreseen or prevented,could legally have been deemed an Act of God.The reaction by insurers amounted to good publicrelations, but ‘bending the rules slightly’ might nothave been so easy if claims had run into tens orhundreds of thousands instead of the relatively lownumbers experienced by companies such as Axa andNorwich Union.

To cover or not to coverThe most popular type of travel insurance consists ofpackage plans that are pre-bundled by insurancecompanies and sold as a package of covers. However,trip cancellation is usually not included in these, since itis seen as a peril. Some natural disasters caused byweather are covered by certain policies, as long as theinsured’s common carrier is delayed or cancelled as adirect result.Claims for trip cancellations are usually only acceptedif a claim meets clearly conditions defined in the bodyof the policy. For natural disasters, the claim is mostcommonly considered to be valid using language suchas the hotel or vacation provider was not functioningfor more than 24 hours.After 9/11 and during the SARS epidemic in Asia, holidayor trip cancellation claims were invalid if a travellerdecided simply not to go because of general concerns

over health or safety after bookings were made.However, some bespoke policies can be much moreflexible about trip cancellations, albeit for a premium.If a planned destination suddenly features in the mediaas the latest world trouble spot, rather than theattractive location originally imagined, claims forrefunds could depend on what advice is given bygovernment – the Foreign and Commonwealth Officein the UK, State Department in the US and otherforeign ministries in Australia, Canada and elsewherethat provide regularly updated travel advisory noticeson individual countries.Tour operators will, usually, exchange the bookedholiday for another of the same value somewhereelse, or defer the departure date to the samedestination and, as a last resort, provide a refund if theoriginal contract has in legal terms become frustrated.

Predictable lossesPolicies are usually invalidated if losses are deemed tooccur through terrorist acts or civil unrest. In general itseems to be a case of how predictable, if at all, thecircumstances were. As yet, predicting naturaldisasters is much more difficult than advising onpolitical instability, but there are some guidelines.The typical Atlantic hurricane season, for example,runs from 1 June through 30 November. In theeastern North Pacific, the season starts earlier, runningfrom 15 May through 30 November. Anyonetravelling between these times in the Caribbean,Mexico, and Central America and on the coast of theUS needs to look closely at their insurance, especiallyif they are covered for trip cancellation. Recent eventspoint to the hurricane season lasting even longer.Speaking just months before the impact of Katrina and

Rita, Professor Mark Saundersof the Benfield HazardResearch Centre at London’sUniversity College,commented: “Following theravages of 2004, the currentand projected climate signalsnow suggest that we shouldprepare for anotherexceptionally active Atlanticseason in 2005, a factor thatunderlines the ongoing needfor vigilance on the part ofgovernment and citizens alike.”Allianz AG’s meteorologist,Matthias Klawa stated:“Hurricane frequency isinfluenced by both natural

variability and climate warming. We agree withscientists who say that a changing climate is affectingthe severity of natural disasters.”Munch Re’s chairman, Nikolaus von Bombard, said:“The natural events to date have cost substantiallymore than for the first nine months of this year. Weare nevertheless optimistic of achieving our resulttarget of 12 per cent return on equity.”Lloyd’s is also putting on a brave face announcing aninterim profit of some $2.37 billion for the first sixmonths of 2005, a 21 per cent increase over thesame period of the previous year. Even with theimpact of the hurricane season, full year results are stillexpected to be positive.Yet there are concerns. The UK Financial ServicesAuthority has asked UK insurers for details of potentialliabilities arising from Hurricane Katrina. Munich Reputs the overall insured market loss for HurricaneKatrina at up to $30 billion. However, there are saidto be still ‘significant uncertainties regarding coverageissues and thus also about the actual loss burdensfacing the insurance industry’.With such uncertainties over the impact of naturaldisasters it is not surprising that demand is steadilyincreasing for catastrophe reinsurance and modellingas insurers face the prospect of big payouts fromdisasters in the coming years.Munich Re stated: “Catastrophes on the scale ofKatrina and Rita can occur on virtually all continents.The upcoming round of renewals in reinsurancebusiness must take account of the rising loss trendsand greater risk potentials. Substantially higher pricesare necessary to continue covering natural hazard risksin the future.”The climate appears to be changing before our eyes,for whatever reason, but one thing is for certain –insurers need to create strategies to prevent theircompanies being broken by natural disasters.

www.itij.co.uk International Travel Insurance Journal

NEWSANALYSIS 23

INDUSTRY AWARDS 2005We are delighted to present the finalists(in alphabetical order) for this years ITIJ Awards.The winner of each category will be announcedat the awards ceremony at Hotel Alfonso X111,Seville on Friday 11th November 2005

Insurer/Underwriter of the year

AIG (Europe) UK Ltd

AIG is the largest travel insurer in the world, with astrong global infrastructure and a culture based onintegrity and quality. AIG are uniquely positioned toservice existing and intended operational areas.It is out intention to not only to provide superiorproducts and servicing, but also to demonstrateAIG’S unparalleled capability to integrate with your

technology and operations structure. We see this asthe route to fully optimize the travel insurance salespotential of this opportunity on an international scale.AIG has a history of product innovation, and unlikeother insurers, AIG now offers the removal of theterrorism exclusion, giving greater peace of mind toyour passengers.

Churchill InsuranceUnlike many competitors, we still aimto provide cover for people of all ageswho want to travel and have annualand single policies available for peopleover 65. As well as the usual optionto add winter sports cover, customerscan now buy tailored cover if they are

playing golf or getting married abroad whichfollows the popular holiday trends.As travel insurance policy wordings in general getmore complicated, we’re working to ensure ourcustomers understand what they’re covered for,so our policy wording has been awarded theCrystal Mark by the Plain English Campaign.

Fortis Insurance Ltd

Represented at the Travel UnderwritingGroup and the ABI Travel committee,FIL is committed to developing anddelivering products that meet both theneeds of the customer (in terms ofcover and end pricing) and the retailer(in terms of competitiveness and retailmargins). Collaboration is at the heart of FIL’s

product development philosophy. Ultimately,the retailer/partner is in the best position toidentify what products their customers want.FIL has established itself as the UK’s 4thlargest travel insurer (based on GWP),providing cover for more than 50 milliontravellers in its 35-year history of being a

leading travel insurer.

Medi Travelcover

Medi Travelcover is the UK’s only specialist cancerinsurer with over 90 per cent of our travel insurancepolicies being issued toindividuals who havehad a diagnosis ofcancer. With a specialfocus on children, our policies are specially designedfor those living with cancer.Each case is individually underwritten and withspecialist knowledge of the treatment andmanagement of cancer, we are ready to considerindividuals undergoing treatment such aschemotherapy.A key requirement is that holidaymakers should be

clinically stable and be travelling with the consent oftheir attending specialist consultant.

Medi Travelcover isregulated andauthorized by theFinancial Services

Authority. We work closely with UK charities, cancernetworks, specialist medical centres and supportgroups and have a close working relationship withthe Christian Lewis Trust, which seeks to offersupport to families and individuals affected by a childwith cancer. We actively support a number ofcancer charities and ask our customers to help themby choosing to make a donation.

Mondial UKMondial took the decision tomeet the new Financial ServicesAuthority regulations withenthusiasm by giving customersthe best possible level ofservice and security when theypurchased their insurance through the Internet, via abroker or over the phone and by ensuring theregulations are rigorously maintained throughcomprehensive training and monitoring.Our core strength is derived from our ability to

provide a single point ofcontact for customers’needs. This is madepossible as onlyMondial manage allaspects of the product

development, from risk assessment, underwriting, alldocumentation and fulfillment, policy sales (onlineand offline), 24 hour emergency assistance, claimshandling and settlement.

Medi Travelcover Ltd.

To book a place at this years dinner and awardsceremony please log-on to bookings at www.itic.org.uk

Global Medical Management

Medical & Cost Containment Company of the year

Our mission is to supportthe success of healthinsurers, re-insurers andassistance companies viacomplete cost containmentservices for medical management, cost savings and24 hour customer care in the US.

Applying leading technologies andtaking a consultative view, we workefficiently and effectively to deliverhigh value and significantly reducedadministration that help enhance

our clients’ reputation for service in the uniquelychallenging US healthcare environment.

Medical Claims InternationalMedical Claims Internationaldelivers actual results andperforms the way you wouldexpect of a true cost containmentcompany. Our methodology, withrespect to cost containment, inEurope is very unique. Our claimshandling department specializes in analysing the costof all medical treatment. We assess each claimthoroughly, with predetermined authorization levelsso as to ensure that no claim is considered too smallto review and apply a discount. All claims are

professionally processed and approved tomaximize savings and avoid any risk ofovercharging. We simply believe thatmedical costs need to be managed.Hence, we employ insurance andhealthcare industry professionals to ensurethat each and every one of your claims

will be treated with the highest level of both medicaland financial scrutiny.To this end we have established an extensivenetwork of medical facilities throughout the majortourist resorts in Europe.

Travel and Medical Insurance Services

Established in January 2002,Travel and Medical currentlyhandles over 25,000 calls permonth, managing in excess of250,000 cases per year formany high profile accounts including the Post Office,British Airways, Alliance and Leicester and Kwik-fit.Travel and Medical provides both telephone basedrisk assessment and policy fulfillment services,operating a state of the art call centre, using the UK’sleading risk management software; a highly

developed underwritingtool designed specificallyto evaluate the risksassociated with insuringpre-existing health

conditions under travel insurance policies.Travel and Medical Insurance Services Limited isauthorized and regulated by the Financial ServicesAuthority (FSA), Firm reference Number 311274and is a member of the Association of TravelInsurance Intermediaries

Air Ambulance of the year

Canadian Global Air AmbulanceCanadian Global Air Ambulance isan international air ambulanceorganisation, providing a widerange of aeromedical solutions forprivate individuals, the insuranceindustry and governmentorganisations, across Canada andaround the world.Our approach is unique in that weoffer a fully integrated, client-centered service. Thismeans our medical, flight and customer relationsdepartments operate under one roof.Canadian Global’s 24-hour call centre is staffed byon-site flight co-ordinators and nurse managers who

attend to all patient and patient familymember needs, and who are highly trainedto co-ordinate all aspects of bedside-to-bedside transfers. We own and operateLearjet series aircraft specifically dedicatedto the air ambulance role, equipped withthe latest aeronautical technology, providingfor unrestricted worldwide operations.Strategic base locations in Vancouver,

Winnipeg and Toronto, Canada, maximize ourgeographic coverage and provide for rapid dispatch.Extensive experience in long-range operations haspositioned us as a world leader in the provision ofinternational aeromedical transports.

FAIFAI undertakes worldwide missions byAmbulance-Jet or airliner with attendingphysician and medical stretchers. Airliftbetween hospitals by EMS-helicopter,organ-transportation and transportationof short-life radioactive medications.State-of-the-art medical equipment onboard our Ambulance-Jets and EMS-Helicopters and our highly experienced

medical staff under the supervision of leadingphysicians guarantee the most professionalmedical treatment for the patients.FAI operates three Rescue Helicopters (2eaEurocopter EC 135 one Backup HelicopterBO 105 CBS-5 +) from Leipzig Airport, since1990, on behalf of the Government of Saxoniaand in co-operation with IFA InternationaleFlugambulanz e.V.

Luxembourg Air RescueLAA is based in the heart of Europe,which means that we are able toevacuate patients rapidly and safely fromcountries in Europe, Africa, the Near Eastand Eastern Europe and repatriate themto any location in Europe and worldwide.Our mission is to save human lives byoperating rescue helicopters andambulance aircraft 24 hours, 365 days in

Luxembourg and around the world byapplying the highest safety and qualitystandards.Highly qualified professionals servicingyou 24 hours a day, state of the artequipment to respond to all medicalneeds and two fully medical dedicatedLearjet 35A aircraft and Four MD 900helicopters.

Assistance/Claims Handler of the yearEurop AssistanceEurop Assistance wasfounded in France in 1963,which means that last yearwe celebrated our 40thanniversary. As the originalcreator of the travelassistance concept, Europ Assistance has been at theforefront of an ever-changing assistance world. Wepossess an established reputation for innovation,linked to a true worldwide ability to render multi-facet assistance services to over 109 million

customers worldwide.On call around the clock – 24hours a day, 365 days a year –we provide assistance in 208countries and territoriesthroughout the world. The

ability to offer such a truly global service is achievedthrough our international network of agents andrepresentatives, our 33 telephone customerassistance centres and the support of over 400,000service providers.

Fortis Insurance LtdFIL is proud of its multi-lingual in-houseassistance team, AssistanceInternational (AI), who ensure that helpis on hand 24 hours a day, 365 days ayear, to arrange medical andrepatriation solutions for its customers.This level of commitment is vital inproviding the high level of service thatcustomers have come to expect fromthe UK’s 4th largest travel insurer.

AI is wholly owned by FIL, and has thesole purpose of assisting travellers inneed of medical help, specificallyproviding a professional, caring andefficient service. In 2004 AI dealt with12,255 travel cases from across theworld and over 500 doctors andnurses were flown from the UK tovarious destinations to bring travellershome following medical emergencies.

Mapfre AsistenciaOur objective isto protect theinsuredwhenever andwherever theyneed us. This is achieved by forming part one of themost important international insurance groups,Sistema Mapfre. A network offering over 150,000 service locations,ensuring swift, effective operation worldwide. With31 assistance centres and an international team of

over 2,500professionals in40 companiesaccessing onesingle global

database able to take action in the minimum amountof time in the face of any eventuality.Mapfre Asistencia has been providing assistance forover 15 years. During this time, we have grown onevery front in order to offer our customers the verybest service.

SOS InternationalWe help people indistress no matterwhere they are inthe world – fortheir benefit andfor the benefit ofthe insurance companies that bear the financialresponsibility.We have developed a strategic partnership with twoother major European Emergency Centres, namelyEuroCross in the Netherlands and Roland Assistancein Germany, to achieve an even better worldwide

service and lowerprices for ourcustomers.SOS International hasdeveloped andimplemented an

electronic monitoring system to further improveefficiency in the emergency centre. The new systemmeasures the employees’ performance linked to the‘balanced scorecard model’, thus evaluating theirperformance and contribution in terms of quality,efficiency, economy and social skills.

TRM Assist

Recently we haveprogressed by creating aUK assistance company,which is tailored to thecoach tourism industry.We provide assistanceand assess the claim fromthe onset, minimizing costs for underwriters andincreasing client relationships. We have dedicatedstaff to deal with these calls.

Despite mainly dealingin travel insuranceclaims handling, we alsospecialize in otherservices allied to theindustry. These includepassenger luggage

claims for coach companies who self-insured theliability, tour operator failure claims, and consultancyfor the CPT and risk management services.

People get ill abroad – it’s an undisputable fact. Butwhat is the cost of the sick traveller to national healthservices? Dr Charlie Easmon, medical director, TheNumber One Health Group, offers a personal view ofthe situation, after many years as a doctor conductingmedical evacuations from around the world

Illness is not limited by time or place; indeed, someaspects of travel actually make you ill. Far from homeand unwell is not necessarily a good combination –away from loved ones and in a foreign country.However, being ill abroad can be a blessing becauseyou may get better care than you would get at home.The key question, though, is who should pay for your

illness abroad or theconsequences of it whenyou return to your homecountry?Some governments havethought about this andwithin the EuropeanEconomic Area (EEA) adegree of reciprocityexists. The principle isthat we will either notcharge your citizens at all,or charge them only apercentage for acuteproblems if you do thesame for ours. This is theprinciple behind theE111, which now comesin the form of a card.However, having anE111 does not cover allcosts in all countries. Forexample, in Belgium youare expected tocontribute at least 30 percent of the costs as theBelgian citizen does. Thismeans that a heart attackcan be quite expensive.Outside of the EEA, thetraveller really is on his orher own, and in manycountries a guarantee ofpayment will be requiredbefore medical staff willeven touch you.Travellers withoutinsurance may assumethat no one could be soheartless, or that theirembassy is ready andwilling to write a cheque.We all know that this isnot the case.Insurance ensures thateveryone who needs toget paid gets paid andreduces a lot of stress forall involved. Insurance

requires forward thoughtand the ability to realisethat a smaller cost nowcan protect against greatercost later, but somepeople see it is a costwithout a clear benefit. Richer countries, it can beargued, can cope with thecosts of ill tourists,

although even here, it can cause tensions to run high,but can we expect the increasingly popular traveldestinations of poorer countries to subsidise thehealth needs of tourists – opportunist or accidental?Most of us agree that they should not, but in a cultureof cheap holidays it would probably not be foundacceptable to make travel insurance compulsory.

Knowledge is powerHowever, there are two groups to consider and somesolutions may be possible: those who travel withoutinsurance through lack of knowledge and the obstinate.Much has been done in the last few years to try anddeal with this. In 2001, the UK’s Foreign andCommonwealth Office (FCO) launched its ‘KnowBefore you go Campaign’ with the Association ofBritish Travel Agents. A key component of this was toraise awareness about travel health insurance. In thelast three to four years, the World HealthOrganisation booklet on international travel health hasalso emphasised insurance. And now, most UK travelhealth professionals ensure that insurance is a key partof their advice. However, many people travel withoutseeing a travel health professional, an agent or visitingthe FCO website.More could possibly be done at the airports, byworking with the airport authorities to raise awarenessof the need for insurance. In fact, just a few weeksago I noticed on Eurostar from London to Paris a lastminute text insurance service advertisement – a pieceof clever marketing by the travel insurers and a step inthe right direction to increase awareness of travel ills.In the law, lack of knowledge is not regarded assufficient defence for doing the wrong thing and it canbe argued that those who do not take insuranceshould not be let of the hook and should pay theirassociated health costs. The advantage of this is thatwith just a few ‘I lost my house’ stories, the messagewould be very clearly received. And it may well betime to shock people in to a greater awareness of theneed for travel insurance. People still drive without insurance and fail to insuretheir homes, despite one being illegal and the otherbeing shortsighted. To make travel insurancecompulsory for this group would be met by a greatdeal of resistance and would need very robust andpossibly costly systems to ensure compliance. Whowould have the authority to check? It is unlikely that UKor overseas customs would see it as their duty, and theairport authorities would be unlikely to resource such amove. Certainly, the airlines and the agents would resistanything that adds to the cost of a ticket.Education, information and communication may allhelp the stubborn to purchase travel insurance, ratherthan relying on the country they are visiting to pick upthe bill, but the message needs to be got across in away that successfully communicates costs versusbenefits. This is not easy to do and it is my view thatthe insurance industry itself could help here bycollating its vast resources of data on those who doget ill abroad. Surprisingly, none of this data is everpublished and some years ago when I attempted totalk to insurers about pooling and analysing such datathere was a distinct lack of interest. I also believe thatwe should be looking at insurance that extendsbeyond the holiday period, since diseases may takeseveral weeks to reveal themselves.Despite the UK efforts through the Foreign andCommonwealth Office and the International effortsthrough the World Health Organization there are stillmany millions who travel without insurance.Unfortunately, there is no collection of data that couldcompare tourist income to unremunerated tourist

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Should travel insurancebe compulsory? Part 2

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medical costs to the local health services. Countrieswith mainly private health services, such as the US,have the least problem since there is no question ofthe health care facilities not being paid. The problemlies with the inefficiency and sometimes lack ofmotivation or organisational capacity to collect moneyowed by public sector health services. However, asnational healthcare costs rise, it is likely that more andmore public sectors will at least start to analyse howmuch ‘visitors’ cost the health service. However, manypublic sectors, unlike the private sector, do not knowthe costs of care provided.

What can go wrong and who should pay?The biggest and probably most expensive problem

surrounding foreigners away from home is still roadaccidents. This requires more than just insurance, itrequires international action for safer roads, improveddriving skills, use of helmets and seat belts and somesense on the part of the traveller. However attractivethe Muttutu crammed to the gunnels in Malindi, Kenya,may be, how smart a move is it to sling your bag onthe roof and stand there at forty miles an hour with halfthe village? Every year, several UK tourists paralyse themselvesfrom diving into too shallow waters. You can only tryto educate. Perhaps, we do not need insurance, just‘Darwin awards’.Infection is the next big problem. None of us canquantify the cost to individuals or the Egyptian healthservice of the ongoing high incidence of diarrhoeaamongst tourist to that country. Insurance is not thesolution here. Investment in public health may be, butwho would pay – the local government or the tourists?

It would be interesting to assess willingness to payamongst tourists if you phrased it this way – would yoube prepared to contribute £2 to a campaign to reduceyour chances of getting diarrhoea, which by the wayare very high and could ruin several days of you andyour family’s holiday?One study amongst general travellers showed that:30-50 per cent get ill, five per cent visit a doctor andone per cent need hospitalisation.A problematic sub-group is those from overseas whovisit friends and relatives (VFRS). This group oftenassumes it does not need any travel advice andalthough there is no data, I doubt they actively seektravel insurance. However, they do get ill and InLondon alone they contribute more than 60 per centof imported malaria cases. Sex abroad and sexualtourism are another predictable cost to host and homehealth services but this would be difficult to cover byinsurance because of the incubation period. After all,

holiday insurance, at the moment, stops when you getback from holiday.Medical tourism is also an increasing phenomenon,whereby people go abroad because they know theywill get treated quicker and cheaper by hospitalsabroad. It is especially increasing amongst the elderlypopulation, who often face long waiting lists in theirown countries. Therefore, slipping abroad on a so-called holiday has become a very effective way to takeadvantage of a foreign country’s healthcare system.In conclusion, I do not think it’s practical to make travelhealth insurance compulsory, but I do think we shouldconstantly push to raise awareness of the benefits to theindividual and to the host country of insurance. I alsothink we should encourage the insurance industry topromote a combined holiday and private medicalinsurance scheme for travellers that would cover at leastsome of the cost of their return to their home country.CASE STUDY: SPAIN

One country to highlight the burden that itsnational health service has to bear is Spainand its surrounding islands. As well as beinga popular holiday destinations, it also hasliberal views on immigration, thus has hadthe biggest influx in the whole of Europe inrecent years: Indeed, the Spanish healthcaresystem is now in need of a dose of tenderloving care.The Spanish open door policy toimmigrants and its leniency towardsunhealthy, badly behaved British tourists hasbecome a thorn in its own side. With morethan four million immigrants entering thecountry in the last five years, increasing thepopulation by 10 per cent to 44 million,José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero faces his firstbig political crisis. As leader of Spain’sSocialist government he has to discern howto provide free healthcare and education toan entire population full of new arrivals. Tourists prove only to compound thesituation as with free medical care to thosethat fall ill, the some 55 million that visitSpain each year often take advantage ofthis. In a new wave of what is known as‘medical tourism’, it is surprising how manytourists, particularly elderly ones will maketheir way to Spain only to slip off thegangway as soon as they get to Bilbao, justto get hip replacement surgery. Many of the Islands off Spain are demandingextra funds to cover the cost of treatingnon-residents, as they receive the majorityof tourists. Although the centralgovernment funds the Spanish healthcareservice with €45 billion ($55 billion),tensions are rising with the regionaladministrations as they are responsible forthe provision of services. As a result of thedevolution of the healthcare services,regions took their share of the money butno common strategy or no commonguidelines were followed on how themoney was to be spent. Thus despite thebig rise in healthcare spending there hasbeen very little internal co-ordination. It hasalso opened up regional rifts between richregions with little immigration and tourismand poorer regions with high numbers ofimmigration and tourists draining itshealthcare funds. In Madrid alone, one million new arrivals inrecent years have stretched the healthcareservice to breaking point. The emergencyservices have to deal with a 30 per centincrease in casualties and a 40 per centincrease in medical consultations.Emergency rooms are overflowing andmedical equipment availability is at an alltime low. Madrid’s government haveannounced a need for more that €1.7billion to cut waiting lists and attend to itsimmigrant community. Mr Zapatero hasoffered regional leaders €1.7 billion (thiswill cover one third of the €5 billionshortfall) but in exchange expects theregions to curb costs and raise local taxesto fund extra spending - something thatthey are not willing to do.

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According to the latest World TravelOrganisation statistics, la belle Franceremains the most popular traveldestination of them all, with a staggering71.6 million visitors last year. But the gapis narrowing. In quite recent timesEurope’s top holiday playground hadmore than twice the combined annualnumber of visitors of its two major rivals,Spain and the US. But the 2004 figuresshowed Spain on 53.4 million and theUS on 43.2 million, while Europe’snumber three, Italy, had 33.4 million,well ahead of the UK on 25.8 million.France’s total of travellers attracted intothe country each year is equivalent tomore than one visitor per head ofpopulation, which at the last censusstood at 60,180,529. All that businessadds up to a lucrative 148.5 millionovernight stays and a massivecontribution to the national GDP of€1.5 trillion, which gives France the fifthlargest economy in the world and thethird largest in Europe, after Germanyand the UK.

Sun seekingHowever, while they are consummatehosts, the French don’t match theglobetrotting tendencies of either the

Germans or the British, who spend a total of US$64.7billion and US$48.5 respectively on travel abroadannually. The figure for France is a far lower US$23.6billion, also putting it below the US and Japan. Thecheap packages holiday abroad simply has notimpacted the market to the same degree as elsewhereand less than a quarter of all French people ventureabroad in any given year. Indeed, their outbound travelfigures for the period from January to May this yearshowed a worrying 12.1 per cent decline though,interestingly, that trend was bucked by a whoppinggreat 109.6 per cent increase in French visitors to theIrish Republic in March, and an overall increase of 27.7per cent over the whole of the period concerned. TheMarch phenomenon was in part explained by themighty rugby football international clash between thetwo nations, while the general growth has no doubt

been fuelled by the long-standing strong relationshipthey enjoy. Today Ireland welcomes around 330,000French visitors a year.Overall, neighbouring Spain, just across thePyrénées, enjoys the largest share – some 21 percent – of the French outbound holiday market of16.9 million trips and 148.5 million bed nights. Thisis followed by the two popular North Africandestinations of Tunisia and Morocco, which not onlyhave the requisite sunshine in abundance but alsohave strong historical links with France. These twocountries have a 10 per cent share of the Frenchoutbound market each, followed by Italy on eightper cent. Just one in five French outbound holidaytrips is to a destination outside Europe, with the US,South Americas and the West Indies – especially theFrench islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, St Martinand St Barts (politically not colonies but fullyintegrated constituents of the French Republic) – asthe most popular options.Total spend by the French on private travel abroadnow exceeds €20 billion annually, which is justunder a quarter of the total French private travelexpenditure of €75 billion.City and short breaks are becoming popular, butunlike the growing pattern among German andBritish overseas travellers who often seek culture,history, countryside and other distractions, theFrench motivation is predominantly sun-seeking andtherefore travel time is not generally spread throughthe year but is concentrated in the summer monthsof July and August, when many French businessesand towns virtually close down as everyone flocks tothe beaches. Since they have so many good sands oftheir own, as well as verdant countryside and all thathistory, it is no surprise to find that only 10 per centof travel as a whole – business and leisure – takesthe French beyond their national borders and 33 percent of holidays are taken abroad, with nearly halfpre-booked more than a month in advance ofdeparture date. Nearly half of all French travellersabroad opt for hotel accommodation.Interestingly, both ferry crossings to the UK andcheap flights between French and UK airports arepatronised overwhelmingly by British rather thanFrench passengers, despite massive promotionalefforts by the companies concerned. Those Frenchpeople who do travel abroad tend to be students,

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They live in the capital of world tourism, butthe French are not great travellers. That’schanging though, as Roger St Pierre reveals

Vive la France!

ABC1s or those visiting family or friends abroad.Along with 10 other nations, France enthusiasticallyadopted the euro back in January 1999, and the atthe time rather stagnant economy showed promisingsigns of revival, but since then unemployment hascrept back above double digits. The country hasconsiderable agricultural resources, a still substantialindustrial base and a skilled workforce. It is also aleader in high technology and a strong servicessector now accounts for around 72 per cent of allbusiness but GDP seems to have reached a plateau,at least for the short-term.

International powerhouseIn the 18th Century, France stood as one of therichest and most powerful nations in the world, intrade as well as military terms. Industrialisation kickedoff early but lost much of its momentum so thatagriculture still dominated the economy until afterWorld War Two, when manufacturing flowered andcompanies like Citroen, Thomson and Alcatelbecame international powerhouses.The railways werenationalised in 1937, andduring the era of thedaring Monet Plan justafter the war, such keysectors as coal mining,electricity production,banking, natural gas and oilcame under state control,as did Air France, Renaultand a number of othermajor businesses. At thetail-end of the 1990s,things see-sawed asSocialist governmentsnationalised andConservative onesprivatised. Economicrecovery was doing littleto lower theunemployment rate, thenhovering around 12 percent. So, on arrival inoffice in 1998 thegovernment, headed byLionel Jospin, introducedthe controversial 35-hourworking week. For a whilethe unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 per cent, itslowest level since 1991, but in the years since it hascrept up again.In the manufacturing sector, France was in the 1990sthe world’s fourth largest manufacturer of cars, afterJapan, the US and Germany, and third, after Japanand the US, in commercial vehicle production. Themulti-nation Airbus consortium plus military aircraftmanufacture made France an aviation powerhouse,while it was also a major player on the world stagefor steel and aluminium production, electronics,

locomotives, turbines, nuclear power technology,pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, fashion garments andmuch more. The nation’s foreign trade balance forgoods was in surplus between 1992 and 2001,reaching US$25.4 billion but, hit by economicdownturn, had become a US$15 billion deficit by2003.

A country of contradictionsIt’s a nation of enigmas. The French spend more onbeauty products than any other nation on earth yetonly 47 per cent of them take showers on a dailybasis – a piece of trivia that drew the headline ‘PrettyDirty’ in one newspaper report. They are anotoriously conservative nation in the small ‘c’ senseyet, emboldened by what is arguably the finestsocialised medical service on earth, they arenotoriously sales resistant when it comes to buyinghealth associated insurance products, including travelcover. Yet insurance companies, like the banks, havea high profile and do big business nationally.Interestingly, the core of much such activity is not to

be found in the bustlingbig city of Paris but in arather small and sleepyregional town calledNiort. Here, more thanhalf the workingpopulation findsemployment in theinsurance sector, earningthis otherwiseunpretentious capital ofthe Deux-Sevres regionthe epithet: ‘The MostBourgeois Town InFrance’. Local farmers bandedtogether at the beginningof the century to form thefirst mutual insurancecompany in France,providing the agriculturalcommunity with coveragainst fire, hail damageand mortality to livestock.Then Edmond Proust, acountry schoolteacher,and a group of his friendsbanded together in 1934

to create a company that would provide motorinsurance cover for teachers – a business that grewinto the massive MAIF organisation with its wideportfolio of products. These pioneers were joined inthe 1950s by mutual insurers serving the self-employed (MAAF), the public services (SMACL) andshopkeepers and manufacturers (MACIF). In 1991,MAAF caused a global insurance industry sensationwith its audacious bid to take over America’s at thetime highly troubled Executive Life, a company withmore than three times its own US$3.5 billion in

book assets.Encouraged by recentharmonisation withstandard Europeanpractices, otherinsurance companiesfrom the EU andbeyond have beentesting the Frenchwaters, causing home-grown outfits like AVIto sharpen their act. Ahearteningdevelopment hasbeen last year’s end ofthe 13-year warbetween the industryand the courts overthe status of ‘claimsmade’ clauses ininsurance contracts.Ever highly protectiveof consumers andtheir rights, the FrenchSupreme Court tookan ever stronger standagainst ‘claims made’clauses and on 19December 1990handed down seven

decisions whereby ‘claims made’ clauses weredeemed nul and void. According to expertcommentator Helene Cohen, of Elborne Mitchell,reporting on the subject: “The Supreme Court’srationale was that the payment of premiums for agiven period is meant to indemnify the insuredagainst losses incurred as a result of detrimental actscommitted during that period. Any provision,whereby a loss is compensated only if the claim ismade during the policy period, may deprive theinsured of the benefits of cover. In thesecircumstances, the insurer would potentially receivethe premiums yet fail to give adequatecompensation, which is illegal.” The Supreme Court

substituted the ‘act committed’ as a trigger, withalmost unlimited run-off coverage to all liabilityinsurances. However, as reported by Cohen, the insuranceindustry eventually succeeded in overcoming thejudiciary’s opposition by lobbying the legislature for achange in the law. “Described as one of the mostdramatic over-ruling of case-law in French history,the measure was passed as an amendment to someapparently innocuous legislation aboutcompetitiveness in the French financial sector whilemost of France was on holiday. The new law meansthat the detrimental act must have been committedprior to the contract’s expiry or termination and thatthe claim must be made no later than five years aftersuch time.”As applied to travel insurance claims, the new act willclose a potentially expensive loophole and makes‘claims made’ clauses legal. Hopefully, business in thesector will also see a bright horizon once the Frencheconomy regains the buoyancy of earlier times.What could help this is a growing penchant for travelamong the young many of whom now see traveland the opportunity to work in other EU countriesas part of the growing-up process.In Budapest recently, I sat next to a table of 10youngsters, all were speaking in perfect English yetnot one of them from UK (or, for that matter, fromHungary). Homing in on his French accent, I started aconversation with Jean-Paul, a 24 year old fromNimes: “I’ve been spending the past year travellinground Europe, doing a few weeks work at a timethen moving on.” He almost informed me that asimportant as his shaving kit and comb were his travelinsurance documents: “I have friends who don’tbother, because they are used to the state healthcoverage we enjoy in France. But then they get theirwallet stolen or have a flight cancelled and realise thatthey should have put a little of their budget intoadequate insurance.” Most French people don’ttravel much, but as it becomes more and morepopular to see something of the world they arebecoming increasingly aware of the risks travel entails.

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Though it accounts for growing billions of dollarsworth of coverage, travel insurance remains largelya lonely stepchild within the family of insuranceproducers, tagging along as an adjunct to accidentand sickness, or property and casualty lines ofbusiness. But with international travellersincreasingly aware that ‘going bare’ can be fiscallysuicidal, travel insurers have the opportunity tocarve out a distinct identity for themselves, so longas they can deal with growing legions of regulatorsand their sometimes vaporous and conflicting rules. In the wake of global financial industry failures,growing reliance on cross-border purchases (by theInternet or otherwise), international consolidation ofcompanies and marketing efforts, and a growingconsumerism that demands accountability ofvendors, the responsibility for tighter regulation offinancial services such as banks and insurers hasbecome a top priority of governments worldwide.Allesandro Iuppa, chairman of the InternationalAssociation of Insurance Supervisors, whichrepresents more than 180 jurisdictions in 120countries, earlier this year told a World Bank,International Monetary Fund and Federal Reserve

Board seminar: “Banking, insurance and securitiessectors [must] co-ordinate on regulatory issues and

eliminate cross-border inconsistencies that impedeefficiency of the global financial system, while at thesame time [improve] insurance supervision throughthe setting of global supervisory standards.” Themessage is gaining currency.

FSA-fit to sell in UKWhen the UK’s biggest travel broker, WhiteleyInsurance Consultants, was forced into liquidation inApril for selling policies not underwritten by anauthorised insurer, the Financial Services Authority(FSA) stepped in and used its public interest powersto liquidate the company and bail out thousands ofclients who otherwise would have been left holdingworthless travel insurance policies.Ironically, it was only in January of this year thattravel insurance was shifted to the regulatoryjurisdiction of the FSA whose rules require sellers ofinsurance to be licensed or authorised by it.According to the rules, anyone who is paid to helppeople buy insurance (which includes introducingpeople to an insurance broker or insurer), torecommend specific products, or to help peopleapply for policies or prepare claims, needs to askthe FSA if they require authorisation to carry ontheir activities. But more than that, the FSA alsorequires insurance producers andsellers to meet certain fitness andcompetency standards, to provideclear, comprehensible informationabout the products being sold as wellas plain-language policy summaries,explanations about exclusions and pre-existing conditions, and any potentiallytroublesome fine print. They must alsoallow aggrieved clients access to theFinancial Ombudsman Service, anddisclose means of redress should theseller fail. Good things for theconsumer. But at the same time, theFSA exempted travel agents who areselling insurance as part of holidaypackages from its rules – for now,anyway. The failure to encompasstravel agents within FSA’s rules angeredthe UK’s consumer groups and manyinsurers as well. A review of that issuewill come up in 2007.

According to the Consumers’ Association (CA),such exemption is bad news for consumers and theindustry alike, as consumers will be denied theprotection they deserve, and the reputation oftravel insurance, whether sold by a travel agent ordirect seller, will suffer as a result. Travel insurance isa complex, financial service, said the CA, not aholiday add-on. “We advise consumers to buy theirtravel insurance as a stand-alone product fromspecialised insurance providers,” said a CAspokesperson. “Do not buy from travel agents, touroperators, or as part of a package. These productsare likely to be poor value, and are not subject toFSA regulation.”The Association of British Insurers of the exemptionsaid: “We are disappointed with this decision. Morethan 12 million people a year buy travel insurancethrough travel agents and tour operators. Excludingthese sales from regulation will lead to confusion forcustomers and a two-tier system of regulation.”The underlying justification for channelling buyers toinsurance specialists, as opposed to travel agents, isthat those who sell only insurance will know theirproduct more intimately than will travelprofessionals whose expertise is the selling of traveland whose interest in insurance may be onlyperipheral. It’s like consigning one’s heart artery

Fair regulation

In many countriesthroughout the world, theregulation of travelinsurance ranges fromuneven to barely noticeable.In a bid to find a modelguideline, Milan Korcokscrutinises insuranceregulation around the world

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FEATURE30

bypass to a cardiac team asopposed to a generalpractitioner. But so simple aconcept often gets muddiedwhen thrown to third partyregulators.

US regulation byapplication onlyIn the US, roughly 40 per centof all travel insurance is soldthrough travel agents, accordingto the US Travel InsuranceAssociation, and in close to 45states, travel agents are requiredto be licensed according tolimited license lines. In suchcases, a travel agent has only toapply for a license, but does nothave to complete anexamination. The most theapplicant needs to do is fill out aform, perhaps get fingerprinted,and pay a fee. Although in somejurisdictions, he may need to geta full property and casualtylicense. “The truth is, says Jon Ansell,president of the US TravelInsurance Association (UStiA),“travel agents don’t want to sitanother exam. And travelinsurance suppliers don’t want tomake it any more difficult fortheir distributors to sell theirproducts. Though UStiA’s position in this respect isthat ‘we follow the law.”Ansell added: “We are not infavor of states looking to make licensing more difficult… because in the end we don’t think travel agentswill do this (sit an exam). And because about 40 percent of Americans get their travel protection throughtravel agents, if consumers don’t have an easy way toget this coverage we think the public will not be ableto benefit from the protection travel insuranceprovides.”In the State of New York, for example, the GeneralCounsel of the state insurance department, inAugust, issued a legal opinion to Governor GeorgePataki that a travel agent wishing to sell only baggageand accident insurance must be licensed by the stateto sell such insurance, but the law did not requirehim to pass any examination or have any particulartraining or education that is generally required as aprerequisite for the issuance of other insurance agentlicenses.In the US, as in many other countries, jurisdictionaldisputes mar the way to clean, distinct,comprehensible regulatory authority over financialservices. For years, the National Association ofInsurance Commissioners, representing state levelregulatory agencies in all states and territories, hasbeen fighting off efforts, primarily by legislators, tohave insurance regulation moved to the federal levelwhere more measured oversight might eliminate theinconsistencies that are inevitable when 51 differentregulators set the rules for an industry. Butmomentum for federal oversight continues, and to

many it appears inevitable.But how, while regulations and rules remain souneven, can a supplier of travel or expatriateinsurance licensed in one state or country, beconfident that it can sell its products in another –quite a critical dynamic for a product that breathesacross borders.

Canada’s fluctuating licensingIn Canada, where more than 80 per cent of out-of-country travellers purchase travel insurance (primarilyfor the medical benefits), plan comparisons anddiscussions about content, pre-existing conditions,and other exclusions are given a high priority. Themedia has been quick and merciless in jumping oninsurers hiding behind small print to deny clientclaims. Consumers are highly aware that lapses incoverage, due to slip-shod wording, can cost themdearly, since provincial health insurance plans coververy few out-of-country medical costs. To Canadiantravellers, this is a fundamental pocket book issue.Despite this high visibility, the training, licensing andoverall regulation of travel insurance has been a hitand miss affair, fluctuating among the 10 provinces.Here too, any attempts to consolidate or even outsuch regulatory issues as agent licensing, continuingeducation requirements, product validation anddisclosure, or client redress are obscured by a fog ofconflicting rules and provincial jurisdictions.As a result, the Travel Health Insurance Associationof Canada (THIA) has made several submissions tothe Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators (CCIR)

– a consortium of provincial agencies – advocatinggreater uniformity of licensing, education andcertification standards between the provinces, andseeking uniform standards for consistent rules thatrequire all vendors to meet the same qualifications,nationwide.This is particularly important, says THIA pastpresident Kieran Bridge, as travel insurance is “anational business that is caught up in thetelecommunications industry, as is the entire travelbusiness. Travelinsurance is increasinglysold across provincialboundaries.” THIA’spolicy states thatregulators in oneprovince should be ableto rely on the qualificationof a travel insurancevendor in anotherprovince.In Canada, for example, itis quite normal for aresident of BritishColumbia to call a tollfree number and speakdirectly to an agent inOntario or Quebec to purchase 180 days of travelinsurance for a winter vacation in Arizona. Whereinlies the jurisdiction if that selling agency, or insurer,should fail? One of THIA’s initiatives has been to try to getregulators from each province to agree on uniformlicensing or other regulatory requirements so thatqualification in one province can be treated as apassport for registration or permission to sell inthat other province. “It is slow going, however,”says Bridge.

APRA unitedWith the increasing globalisation of financial services,the pursuit of some degree of uniformity orconsistency is being pursued by individual nationswithin their own borders, as well as international orsupranational groups representing entire industries.In Australia, still sensitive about the HIH, thecountry’s second largest insurer, collapse in 2002,the regulation of Direct Offshore Foreign Insurers(DOFIs) (e.g. Bosnia, the Solomon Islands, The

Cayman Islands) in certainlines, illustrates thedifficulty of trying to createa level playing field. DOFIs are not authorisedby the AustralianPrudential RegulationAuthority (APRA), sincethey are not physicallypresent in the country butthey have beenrecognised by someauthorities as ‘critical tomaintaining viableinsurance arrangements inAustralia’. DOFIs sell intothe Australian market

through intermediaries (brokers and agents). Shouldthey be exempted and held to the standard ofcomparable prudential regulation?And if so, how, asks the Insurance Council ofAustralia – which believes they should be fullyregulated by APRA – can one determinecomparability in those countries?

Meditating the way forwardBefore the FSA assumed jurisdiction for regulation ofgeneral insurance in the UK earlier this year, theGeneral Insurance Standards Council (GISC) had the

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With the increasingglobalization of financialservices, the pursuit of

some degree of uniformityor consistency is beingpursued by individual

nations within their ownborders …

job of overseeing, or trying to, the self-regulatoryefforts of various insurance groups. In the publicationFinancial Services Review, published in February 2005,Chris Woodburn, chief executive of the GISC, notedthat the goal of the council was to unify theregulatory efforts as they already were, and thendraw unregulated areas of the insurance industry in.“It was a bit of a mish-mash,” he admitted. “Lloyd’sdid some regulation, there was the InsuranceBrokers Registration Council (IBRC), but that onlycovered people whowanted to call themselvesinsurance brokers, andthe Association of BritishInsurers (ABI) employedPrice WaterhouseCoopers to monitorthese intermediaries(brokers and agents) thatdidn’t come under theIBRC scheme. None ofthese things worked aswell as they might havedone.” Up until that point,said Woodburn,government was totallysupportive of the conceptof self-regulation.But then camegovernment’s “seachange,” said Woodburn,and “what was fatal to ourcause was the government changing its mind anddeciding regulation of the industry should pass to theFSA.” That it did early in 2005. But in passing to theFSA, insurance regulation was also channelled intothe runway that would bring it in line with theEuropean Union Insurance Mediation Directive,which stated that the insurance industry in memberstates should be regulated by a competent authority. The Insurance Mediation Directive is a Europeaninitiative, designed to create a single market forEuropean insurance intermediaries and a Europe-wide regulatory regime for reinsurers. Member

states were given until 14 January 2005 to integratethe Directive rules into their domestic laws, but onlyseven states met the deadline: Austria, the CzechRepublic, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania andthe UK. More recent surveys indicate that France,Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden are on track toimplement the Directive during 2005.Essentially, what the Directive aims at is a singleEuropean ‘passport’ that enables insurance

intermediaries to conducttheir activities anywherethroughout the EuropeanUnion (EU), but still beunder the regulatorycontrol of their home state– so long as that state is ona level and even playingfield with all others. Ineffect, any firm or individualauthorised by its owncountry according to theEU’s Directive rules, is alsoauthorised to do businessin any other complying EUcountry. That homecountry is also free tostrengthen the rules, or‘gold plate’ them, but thegold plate applies only tointermediaries domiciled orheadquartered within. It

cannot impose those additional requirements onintermediaries from other countries doing business inthat country.Charlie McCreevy, European commissioner forinternal market and services, told a Brussels meetingof European insurance intermediaries this summer:“By providing a regulatory system … in their homemember state, subject to the fulfillment ofprofessional requirements, the Directive ensures thatinsurance intermediaries possess a high level ofprofessionalism and competence, which is anessential requirement for working in an integrated

market.“The Directive alsoguarantees customers ahigh level of protection …[and] lays down preciserules on disclosure and theadvice to be given byinsurance intermediaries,who will providecustomers with theappropriate informationand advice enabling themto make the right choice,”he concluded.Actually, the UK did nothave a lot of choice aboutgoing along with the EUdirectives. Were they to donothing, they would havebeen liable to infractionproceedings and couldhave been fined by theEuropean Commission.But more important, is thatthey might have been shutout from a very large partof a burgeoning insurance market. The UK has thelargest insurance industry in Europe at well over£150 billion.Now, those authorised in the UK automatically havethe right to carry on insurance intermediary activity inany other EU country. Similarly, registered insuranceintermediaries of other EU states automatically havethe right to operate in the UK. In effect, oncegranted by the insurer’s home country, authorisationto carry on a particular line of business is valid for theentire European Community.In the way it integrates distinct jurisdictions, whileleaving their powers intact, the EU paradigm hasattracted the attention of some American regulatorsand insurance academics. In a paper prepared for theInternational Insurance Society annual meeting in2004, professors of insurance Robert Cooper ofDrake University and Mark Dorfman of the

University of North Carolina at Charlotte, outlined acomplete overhaul of the US insurance regulatorysystem, modelled on the EU paradigm, blending theright of states to set the complementary rules forlicensure, etc., with the responsibility for oversightresting with a Federal Insurance Office. If, despite rejection of its constitution and the failureof its budgetary plans Europe can still move aheadwith the 42 Directives that comprise its FinancialServices Action Plan (of which the InsuranceMediation Directive is but one), it would achieve anew way of doing business for countries andcompanies working in a truly integrated marketplace.And that would be a practical template for insurersand other financial service providers looking to dobusiness across borders without losing their ownleverage to evenly and consistently regulate it,something that escapes them today.

THERE IS LIGHT ON THE HORIZON

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FEATURE32

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

Essentially, what theDirective aims at is a

single European‘passport’ that enables

insurance intermediariesto conduct their activitiesanywhere throughout theEuropean Union, but stillbe under the regulatorycontrol of their home

state …

Calls come to our legal hotline from a wide varietyof travel destinations, but in the past severalmonths, calls from the Yucatan Peninsula (Cancun)to our legal hotline have substantially increased.Recently, I described in this column, a frighteningincident that took place in Riviera Maya, south ofCancun, where an eight-year-old American boy,visiting a resort with his mother and sister,disappeared while swimming in the resort’s pool.The boy’s lifeless body was discovered 20 hourslater in an open, unprotected drainage pipe, whichsucked him in with enough force to fold him in half.At the family’s request, our Cancun lawyer soughtcriminal prosecution of the responsible hotelemployees as an adjunct to the civil lawsuit broughtagainst the hotel chain in the US. I had hoped that publicising this tragedy would alertother Mexican hotels and resorts to the need forsafety precautions to eliminate dangerous conditionsin their swimming pools, and thereby prevent moredeaths, but I was wrong. Unfortunately, on 27August 2005, a 13-year-old boy, visiting a popularCancun resort with his family, died as a result ofanother faulty swimming pool drainage pipe. Theboy’s bathing suit was sucked into the drainpipe,trapping him at the bottom of the pool. The boy’sfather, along with several other people, attemptedto rescue him but by the time they were able tocut off the bathing suit and free the boy from thepipe’s strong suction, he could not be revived.These incidents were met with relative indifferenceby the resorts, both of which are popularinternationally known destinations. Reports ofserious but easily preventable incidents in thisMexican state, Quintana Roo, continue to come toour attention. Lawsuits against the offending hoteland resort corporations are difficult, expensive andfrustrating. Inconsolable parents and other grievingfamily members are further upset by roadblocks tojustice built into the Mexican legal system.It is a relief to deal with callers with routineproblems. Recently, there has been an increase incalls from foreign work experience programmeparticipants arrested for shoplifting in the US.The typical offender is a young woman citizen of adeveloping country arrested at a chain store andcharged with stealing cosmetics.These matters come to us as a result of the legalconsultation and referral benefits that are part of the programme participants’ mandatory travelinsurance coverage.

The consequences for these young women varywidely depending on the location of the offense.Results range from conditional discharge with norecord, to a guilty verdict with a permanent record.In addition, there is the possible collateralconsequence of denial of future US visas.Incarceration is rare, but substantial fines are oftenimposed. My favorite cases typically involve distant, moreexotic locations. One such call came from Maliwhere a married French couple was held hostageby Timbuktu Tours, their Malian land tour arranger.The tour company had not been paid by thecouple’s travel agency and knew that paymentwould not occur once the couple departed. Withjust a few telephone conference calls, we were ableto solve the missing funds issue and the couple waspermitted to board an Air France flight fromBamako to Paris.Another African country, Nigeria, remains thesource of frustrating legal problems. We havepreviously described the horrors encountered bythe victims who respond to Nigerian advance feefraud letters. Now we feel compelled to describethe next generation of scams, which now arrive byemail. With Nigeria’s bad reputation as the sourceof fraudulent solicitations, the emails now originatefrom other African countries, including otherwiselawful South Africa and Ghana. It is ourunderstanding that the sources of these emails aretransplanted Nigerians.Despite increasingly sophisticated scenarios, theemails are still requests for assistance in exportinghuge sums of money. A recent story is of a dyingfather who informed his eldest son that theproceeds from the sale of the family’s Zimbabweanfarm (alleged to be at least $15 million) had beensecreted in a safe box in South Africa. The emailrequests a bank account and personal bankinginformation, allegedly needed to deposit thecontents of the box. We continue to receive calls from recipients of suchemails who ask for African legal referrals to assistthem in obtaining the money. Despite our direwarnings, perhaps because of a strong desire to getrich quick, some are still willing to risk life, limb andfortune in an attempt to obtain the promised funds.We have stopped at least a dozen of these emailrecipients from falling victim to this scam, protectingtheir bank accounts from the fraudsters, and savingthem from personal peril.

Incidents in Mexico, at hotels that are not up to

standard, are on the up. Meanwhile, letters from

Africa pertaining to be get-rich-quick schemes are

landing people in a legal quagmire. Dick Atkins

brings the situation to our attention

From Cancun to Timbuktu

Bangladesh: Theemerging terrorist threatOver the past few years, the internationalcommunity has been warning Bangladesh thatIslamic extremist groups were using its territory as asafe haven. Until recently, Bangladeshi officialsdenied this and the opposition Awami Leagueaccused the ruling coalition government of ignoringthe more-extreme Islamic organisations, includingJamayet-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) andHarkat-ul-Jihad Islami Bangladesh. iJet RiskManagement examines the situation

Following the surprisingly sophisticated string ofbombings throughout the country on 17 August –approximately 450 homemade bombs detonated inone hour in 63 out of the country’s 64 districts – thegovernment arrested hundreds of suspects and vowedto crack down on extremist groups. But the incidentsof 17 August may portend more violence to come,and it is far from clear that the government has thecapacity, or willingness, to eradicate the growingIslamic extremism in Bangladesh.Political support for Islamic extremist organisations isnothing new in Bangladesh: Over the past threedecades, a succession of governments – both civilianand military – have supported fundamentalist groups asa tool to repress their political opponents. Following aSeptember 2002 bombing in the southwesternBangladesh town of Satkhira, a spokesperson for theAwami League said that certain people in Bangladesh,including some government ministers, were‘unquestionably sympathetic to the Taliban’.The comment likely referred to certain political leadersof Jamaat-e-Isami and Islamic Oika Jote (IOJ), theIslamic parties that share power with the rulingBangladesh National Party (BNP). Awami membersallege that elements of these Islamist parties have linksto the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and provide materialsupport and protection for Islamic extremist groups.Following the 17 August attacks, which left two deadand 140 injured, Awami League leader Sheikh Hasinaalleged that ‘Jamaat has been supervising activities ofvarious terrorist groups in the country for a long time’.In Bangladesh, as in some other countries,fundamentalists have been free in the past fewdecades to establish religious schools, or madrassas,which may number in the thousands and are oftenattended by foreign jihadists with revolutionaryaspirations. Whether these jihadists will follow the leadof Pakistan’s Islamic extremists and ultimately seek to

overthrow the government of Bangladesh is anincreasingly valid question.

A symbolic show of strengthIt appears the August operation was meant as a showof strength rather than an attempt to kill. The bomberstargeted a wide range of facilities, focusing on localgovernment and judicial buildings. By targeting thesesymbolic sites, the militants appear to have beensending a message that a crackdown on extremistactivities could be costly. The attacks were almostcertainly in response to February’s government-issuedban of several Islamic extremist outfits, including theJMB, which is now suspected of spearheading the plot.The ban came after the European Union, a majoreconomic partner for Bangladesh, increased thepressure on the Bangladeshi government to crackdown on extremists. The bombing operationundoubtedly involved the co-ordination of perhapshundreds of different cells – likely operating in discretenetworks across the country – and was surely meantto demonstrate the capability of the extremists toconduct operations anywhere in the country. According to a French diplomat in Dhaka: “The well-planned, well executed attack [of 17 August] provedthe existence of a strong terrorist network that iscapable of doing anything they want.” Indeed, the factthat the authorities were oblivious indicates that theterrorists were either disciplined enough to avoiddetection, or enjoyed some degree of protection fromthe security forces. While an inquiry by Bangladeshimilitary intelligence has drawn no apparent linksbetween Army personnel and JMB, accusations to thecontrary continue to circulate. A member of JMBarrested soon after the 17 August operationreportedly identified eight officers in the Army that hadtrained JMB operatives in the fabrication of explosives.

Security outlookThe security outlook in Bangladesh is not good. Whilethe government has arrested hundreds of suspectsand agreed to crack down on terrorism funding, thereis no evidence that Islamist parties are ready to severties with the extremists and pursue the steps necessaryto eliminate the terrorist networks. To achieve such astrategic shift, the Islamist parties would have topublicly renounce all political violence, cut off thefinancing of extremist activities, and help bring the JMBleadership to justice.

www.itij.co.uk International Travel Insurance Journal

DICK’SHOTLINE / HOTSPOTS 33

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

SERVICEDIRECTORY 34 To have your company listed in the Service Directory email: dave@itij.co.uk

Global Medical Support Otto Karud – Marketing Director

Ullevaal University Hospital gms@snla.no0407 Oslo www.globalmedicalsupport.comNORWAY Tel: +47 22 96 50 50

Telfax: +47 22 96 50 51

IFRA Bernhard Fantner – Assistant to Director

Bahnhofplatz 13/5 office@ifra.atPOB 160 www.ifra.at3500 Krems Tel: +43 2732 825 610AUSTRIA Fax: +43 2732 851 01

Luxembourg Air Ambulance Andy Breeden – Operations

175A, rue de Cessange info@air-ambulance.luL-1321 www.air-ambulance.luLUXEMBOURG Tel (24 hr): +352 420 440 1

Fax: +352 420 440 366

Med Call GmbH Michael Diefenbach – CEO

Bahnhofstrasse 22 info@medcallgmbh.com65185 www.medcallgmbh.comWiesbaden Tel: +49 611 9310 310GERMANY Fax: +49 611 9310 311

Medic’Air International Dr Herve Raffin – General Manager

35 Rue Jules Ferry operations@medic-air.com93170 Bagnolet www.medic-air.comParis Tel: +33 1 4172 1414FRANCE Fax: +331 4857 1010

Medical Jet Services & Partner W DichtlRadetzkystr 19 office@medicaljetservice.comVienna www.medicaljetservice.com1030 Tel: +43 1 713 2799AUSTRIA Fax: +43 1 713 2799-19

North Flying A/S Jef Sorenson – Sales Director

Aalborg Airport info@northflying.comNorresundby www.northflying.comDK-9400 Tel: +45 96 32 29 00DENMARK Tel: +45 96 32 29 09

Swiss Air Ambulance/REGA Walter Stunzi – PR/Marketing Mgr

PO Box 1414 ops@rega.chZurich Airport www.rega.chCH-8058 Tel: +41 333 333 333SWITZERLAND Fax: +41 44 654 3590

Tyrol Air Ambulance Jakob Ringler – Managing Director

PO Box 81 taa@taa.atA-6026 www.taa.atInnsbruck Airport Tel: +43 512 224 220AUSTRIA Fax: +43 512 288 888

NORTH AMERICA

Aerojet Stuart Hayman – President

4631 NW 31st Ave #220 info@aero-jet.comFt Lauderdale www.aero-jet.comFL 33309 Tel: +1 954 730 9300USA Fax: +1 954 485 6564

Air Ambulance Professionals, Inc. Brian L. Weisz – President

Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport sales@airambulanceprof.com1535 South Perimeter Rd www.airambulanceprof.comHangar 36B Ft. Lauderdale Tel: +1 954 491 0555Florida 33309 Fax: +1 954 491 6114USA

Air Ambulance Specialists, Inc. Donald Jones – President

8001 S.Interport Blvd. info@airaasi.comSuite 250 www.airaasi.comEnglewood Toll Free: +1 800 424 7060CO 80111 Tel: +1 720 875 9182USA Fax: +1 720 875 9183

AIR AMBULANCE cont.AIR AMBULANCE

AFRICA

AMREF Flying Doctor Service Dr Bettina Vadera – Medical Director

Wilson Airport emergency@flydoc.orgLangataRoad www.amref.orgPO Box 18617 Tel: +254 20 600 090Nairobi Fax: +254 20 344 170KENYA

Netcare 911 Aeromedical Shane MaraisNetcare 911 House flight@traumalink.co.za49 New Road www.netcare911.co.zaHalfway House Tel: +27 11 254 1392Midrand 1685 Fax: +27 11 254 1405SOUTH AFRICA

AUSTRALASIA

CareFlight International Colin Robshaw – Co-ordinator

Westmead Hospital Campus crobshaw@bigpond.net.auPO Box 159 www.careflight.orgWestmead Tel: +61 2 9891 1644NSW 2145 Fax: +61 2 9891 1284AUSTRALIA

Medical Wings Jarin Kiatfuengfoo – Director

222 Room 3602 m.w@medicalwings.comBangkok Int Airport www.medicalwings.comViphavadeo-Rangsit Rd Tel: +662 247 3392Sikan, Donmuang Fax: +662 535 4355Bangkok 10210, THAILAND

Mediflight Debra O’Brien – Operations Manager

Royal Adelaide Hospital info@mediflight.com.auNorth Terrace www.mediflight.com.auAdelaide Tel: +61 8 8223 6618SA 5000 Fax: +61 8 8223 6340AUSTRALIA

South Pacific Air Ambulance Scotty Watson – Managing Director

NEW ZEALAND ops@spaanz.co.nzAUSTRALIA Tel: +649 256 9000SINGAPORE Fax: +649 256 9111

EUROPE

Aeromed 365 Ltd Alida Benton – Managing Director

Worth Corner Business Cntr info@aeromed365.comTurnershill Road www.aeromed365.comPound Hill, Crawley Tel: +44 8707 596 999W Sussex RH10 7SL Fax: +44 8707 559 599UK

Alba Consulting Ltd. Andrew McGill – Managing Director

14 Belvedere Gardens enquiries@albaconsulting.orgCrowborough www.albaconsulting.orgEast Sussex Tel: +44 1892 610 560TN6 2LR Fax: +44 1892 652 620UK

Ambulanzflugdienst Augsburg Roland Schoberth –Director

Roseggerstr 17 info@ambulanzflugdienst.deD-86368 www.ambulanzflugdienst.deGersthofen Tel: +49 821 299 1020GERMANY Tel: +49 821 299 2030

DRF German Air Rescue Frank Spirgatis – Director, Fixed Wing

Raiffeisenstr 32 frank.spirgatis@drf.de70794 Filderstadt www.german-air-rescue.deGERMANY Tel (24hr): +49 711701070

Fax: +49 711701071

Euro-flite Air Ambulance Juani Missonen – Coordinator

Helsinki International Airport juhani.missonen@jetflite.fiPO Box 187 Tel: +358 20510 1900FIN-01531 Fax: +358 20510 1901VantaaFINLAND

FAI – Flight Ambulance International Sven Mueller – Operations Manager

Flughafenstrasse 100 (GAT) info@fai-ag.deD-90411 Nuremberg www.flightambulance.comGERMANY Tel: +49 911 36009 0

Fax: +49 911 36009 59

www.itij.co.uk International Travel Insurance Journal

SERVICEDIRECTORY 35call +44 (0) 117 925 5151 To make an alteration to a listing email: dave@itij.co.uk

ASSISTANCE COMPANIES cont.Air Ambulance Worldwide Inc. Mark Jones – President

35246 US Hwy 19 North mjones31@tampabay.rr.com#210 www.airambulanceworldwide.comPalm Harbor Tel: +1 727 781 1198Florida 34684 Fax: +1 727 786 0897USA

Air Trek Air Ambulance David Bump – Vice President

28000 A-5 Airport Road airtrek@sunline.netPunta Gorda www.medjets.comFL 33982 Toll free: +1 800 633 5387USA Tel: +1 941 639 7855

Canadian Global Air Ambulance Jeff McIntosh – President

Toronto jmcintosh@canadianglobalair.caWinnipeg www.canadianglobalair.caVancouver Toll Free: +1 800 563 3822CANADA Tel: +1 204 888 5555

Fax: +1 204 888 9111

Global Air Response Carlos Elcoro – Int. Programme Director

7355 S Peoria Street tcox@airresponse.netA3/ Suite 209 www.airresponse.netEnglewood Tel: +1 800 631 6565CO 80112 Fax: +1 888 631 6565USA

JetWest Shawn Crocker16644 Roscoe Blvd operations@jetwest.comVan Nuys www.jetwest.comCalifornia 91406 Tel: +1 818 787 910091406 Fax: +1 818 787 4473USA

National Air Ambulance George Martinez– Mgr Flight Co-ordination

3495 SW 9th Ave enquiry@nationalairambulance.comFort Lauderdale www.nationalairambulance.comFL 33315 Tel: +1 954 359 9900USA Fax: +1 954 359 9500

Skyservice Air Ambulance David Ewing – VP Int. Market Development

YUL/Trudeau Int Airport skyservicemiami@aol.com9785 Avenue Ryan www.skyservice.comMontreal (Quebec) Tel: +1 514 497 7000H9P 1A2 Fax: +1 514 636 0096CANADA

ASSISTANCE COMPANIES

AFRICA

AMREF Flying Doctor Service Dr Bettina Vadera – Medical Director

Wilson Airport emergency@flydoc.orgLangata Road www.amref.orgPO Box 18617 Tel: +254 20 600 090Nairobi Fax: +254 20 344 170KENYA

Connex Assistance Egypt Lara Helmi – Int Network Director

Office II info@connexassistance.comIst Floor www.connexassistance.com6 Sad El Aali Street Tel (24hr): +2 02 336 0005Dokki, Cairo Fax (24hr): +2 02 762 0003EGYPT

AUSTRALASIA

Blue Dot Assistance Dr Faustinus Wirasadi– President Director

Blue Dot Center bluedot.assistance@idn.co.idBlok K, L, M www.idn.co.idJl Gelong Baru Utara 5-8 Tel: +62 21 5696 2399Tomang, Jakarta Barat 1440 Fax: +62 21 5696 2499INDONESIA

Customer Care Pty Ltd Janine Benson – Operations Manager

Level 3 janineb@customercare.com.au60 Miller Street www.customercare.com.auNorth Sydney 2060 Tel: +612 9202 8222NSW Fax: +612 9202 8220AUSTRALIA

First Assistance Mary-Jo McDonald – Sales & Marketing Mgr

PO Box 17-310 rescue@firstassistance.co.nzGreenlane www.firstassistance.co.nzAuckland Tel: +64 9 356 1650NEW ZEALAND Fax: +64 9 525 1278

Global Assistance & Healthcare Mario Babin – Chief Executive Officer

Jalan Pattimura global@global-assistance.net15 Kebayoran Baru www.global-assistance.netJakaita Tel: +62 21 725 811512110 Fax: +62 21 725 7961INDONESIA

Medical Wings Jarin Kiatfuengfoo – Director

222 Room 3602 m.w@medicalwings.comBangkok Int Airport www.medicalwings.comViphavadeo-Rangsit Rd Tel: +662 247 3392Sikan, Donmuang Fax: +662 535 4355Bangkok 10210 THAILAND

South Pacific Air Ambulance Scotty Watson – Managing Director

NEW ZEALAND ops@spaanz.co.nzAUSTRALIA Tel: +649 256 9000SINGAPORE Fax: +649 256 9111

EUROPE & THE MED

Antalya Assistance Murat Arslanoglu – Network Manager

Muratpasa Mah. info@fempatr.comAdnan Menderes Bulvari 19 www.fempatr.comGazihan K:4 D:21 Tel: +90 242 243 6219Antalya Fax: +90 242 248 7724TURKEY

ARC Transistance Hans Biekmann – Network Director

11 Avenue Pleiades hans.biekmann@arctransistance.comB-1200 Brussels www.arctransistance.comBELGIUM Tel: +32 2 776 04 70

Fax: +32 2 776 04 99

Atlantic Assist Adriano Gouveia – Operations Manager

Rua da Alfandega 10-2.D info@atlanticassist.comPO Box 750 www.atlanticassist.com9000-056 Funchal Tel: +351 291 214 200Madeira Fax: +351 291 214 202PORTUGAL

Express Assist Vardan Azatian – General Director

11-th Radialnaya, 2 eac@expressassist.ru115404 www.expressassist.ruMoscow Tel: +7 095 775 2090RUSSIA Fax: +7 095 775 2091

Global Voyager Assistance Costas Danilenko – CEO

PO Box II cdanilenko@gvassistance.com125124 www.gvassistance.comMoscow Tel: +7 095 775 0999RUSSIA Fax: +7 095 775 0998

Life Assist Igor A Striganov – General Director

House 3/7 24h@lifeassist.ru5th Passage of Marinoi Roshi www.lifeassist.ru129594, Moscow Tel: +7 095 755 5678RUSSIA Fax: +7 095 631 0465

MK International Emergency Services Minas Kaloumenos – General Manager

95, Ioanninon Street mkassist@hol.gr10444 Athens Tel: +30 210 5154600GREECE Fax: +30 210 5131660

SER Assistance Ltd. Dr S Zareceansky – Gen Mgr & Director

50/2206 Dizengoff Street serasist@netvision.net.ilDizengoff Tower Tel: +972 544 370 00264332 Tel-Aviv Fax: +972 362 919 91ISRAEL

SOS International Helle Drager – Marketing Manager

Nitivej 6 soshungary@invitel.huDK-2000 www.sos.dkFrederiksberg Tel: +45 7010 5050Copenhagen Fax: +45 7010 5056DENMARK

AIR AMBULANCE cont.

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

SERVICEDIRECTORY 36 To have your company listed in the Service Directory email: dave@itij.co.uk

TBS Team 24 d.o.o Edvard Hojnik – General Manager

Ljubljanska Ulica 42 info@tbs-team24.com2000 Maribor www.tbs-team24.comSLOVENIJA Tel: +386 2618 2301(Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Fax: +386 2618 5800Kosovo, Herzegovina & Serbia)

NORTH & CENTRAL AMERICA

Assured Assistance Inc. Martha Turnbull – Director of Operations

6880 Financial Drive martha.turnbull@rbc.comMississauga Tel: +1 905 816 2495Ontario Fax: +1 905 813 4719L5N 7Y5CANADA

CMN Inc. Peter Lozier – Vice President

140 Renfrew Drive plozier@canmednet.comSuite 103 Markham www.canmednet.comOntario Tel: +1 905 669 4333L3R 6B3 Fax: +1 905 669 2221CANADA

Global Excel Management Brian Allatt – CEO

73 Queen Street corpinfo@globalexcel.caLennoxville, Quebec www.globalexcel.caJIM IJ3, CANADA Tel: +1 866 566 11304242 Cranmore Court Fax: +1 819 566 8335Belle Isle, Fl 32812, USA

Medex Assistance Corporation Linda McGee – SVP of Sales

8501 LaSalle Road info@medexassist.comSuite 200 www.medexassist.comBaltimore Tel: +1 410 453 6300MD 21286 Fax: +1 410 453 6301USA

TMCA Margaret Whartom – Ops Manager

217 Broadway margaret@tmcatravel.comSuite 600 www.tmcatravel.comNYC Tel: +1 212 964 8580NY 10007 Fax: +1 212 406 1520USA

World Travel Protection Canada Inc. Dr Ron Mayer – President & Chf Med Officer

400 University Avenue ron.mayer@wtp.ca15th Floor www.wtp.caToronto Tel: +1 416 977 3565Ontario M5G IS7 Fax: +1 416 205 4676CANADA

AIR AMBULANCE INTERIOR

Air Ambulance Technology Egon Kuntner – President

A-5282 aat@airambulancetechnology.comRanshofen www.airambulancetechnology.comAUSTRIA Tel: +43 7722 85051

Fax: +43 7722 85051-22

COST CONTAINMENT

EUROPE

ChargeCare International Philip Marshall – Director of Operations

PO Box 18 admin@chargecare.co.ukHolsworthy www.chargecare.co.ukEX22 7WB Tel: +44 1409 261 368UK Fax: +44 1409 261 633

M & V Administrators GmbH Jennifer Venables – Corp. Ops Director

Obergütschstrasse 33 jennifervenables@mv-administrators.comPostfach 7622 www.mv-administrators.comCH-6003 Luzern Tel: +41 41 210 6040SWITZERLAND Fax: +41 41 210 6039

NORTH AMERICA

CMN Inc. Peter Lozier – Vice President

140 Renfrew Drive plozier@canmednet.comSuite 103 Markham www.canmednet.comOntario Tel: +1 905 669 4333L3R 6B3 Fax: +1 905 669 2221CANADA

Global Excel Management Brian Allatt – CEO

73 Queen Street, Lennoxville corpinfo@globalexcel.caQuebec, JIM 1J3, CANADA www.globalexcel.ca4242 Cranmore Court Tel: +1 866 566 1130Belle Isle, FL 32812 Fax: +1 819 566 8335USA

Global Medical Management Raija Itzchaki – Assistant VP Marketing

7901 SW 36th Street contact@gmmusa.comSuite 100 www.gmmusa.comDavie Tel: +1 954 370 6404FL 33328 Fax: +1 954 370 8613USA

Health Systems International Peggy Novotny – VP / Gen Mng. Int Bus.

5975 Castle Creek Parkway pnovotny@us-hsi.comSuite 100 www.us-hsi.comIndianapolis Tel: +1 317 806 2000IN 46250 Fax: +1 317 806 2033USA

Health Management Network Rhett Crosby – Nat PPO Network Sales Mgr

Southwest Corporate Center rhettc@imxinc.com1600 W.Broadway Road www.healthmanagementnetwork.comSuite 300, Tempe Tel: +1 480 446 2413AZ 85282 Fax: +1 480 894 313USA

Hygeia Corporation Joe Radigan – Chief Operating Officer

15500 New Barn Road j.radigan@hygeia.netSuite 200 www.hygeia.netMiami Lakes Tel: +1 305 594 9291FL 33014 Fax: +1 305 594 9201USA

Medsave USA Donald Moyle – Chief Marketing Officer

1400 Old Country Road dmoyle@medsaveusa.comSuite 109 www.medsaveusa.comWestbury Tel: +1 516 622 1700NY 11590 Fax: +1 516 622 1733USA

OneWorld Assist Calvin Ball – Business Development Manager

10th Floor info@oneworldassist.com6081 No. 3 Road www.oneworldassist.comRichmond, BC Tel: +1 604 278 4108V6Y 2B2 Fax: +1 604 303 2142CANADA

Star Healthcare Network Inc. Gigi Galen – President

850 Seventh Avenue ggontheroad@aol.comSuite #803 www.starhealthcarenet.comNew York 10019 Tel: +1 212 581 8228USA Fax: +1 212 581 8272

TMCA Margaret Whartom – Ops Manager

217 Broadway margaret@tmcatravel.comSuite 600 www.tmcatravel.comNYC Tel: +1 212 964 8580NY 10007 Fax: +1 212 406 1520USA

CLAIMS MANAGEMENT

Global Assistance & Healthcare Nathan Hannah – TPA Mgr Asia/Pac

Jalan Pattimura nathan.hannah@global-assistance.net15 Kebayoran Baru www.global-assistance.netJakaita Tel: +62 21 725 811512110 Fax: +62 21 725 8951INDONESIA

Global Excel Management Brian Allatt – CEO

73 Queen Street, Lennoxville corpinfo@globalexcel.caQuebec, JIM 1J3, CANADA www.globalexcel.ca4242 Cranmore Court Tel: +1 866 566 1130Belle Isle, FL 32812 Fax: +1 819 566 8335USA

CRITICAL CARE PATIENT TRANSPORT

Lufthansa German Airlines Doris Ehring – Product & Process Management

FRA SQ/B doris.ehring@DLH.deFrankfurt Airport Tel: +49 172 367 7929D-60546 Fax: +49 69 690 58147GERMANY

ASSISTANCE COMPANIES cont. COST CONTAINMENT cont.

SERVICEDIRECTORY 37call +44 (0) 117 925 5151 To make an alteration to a listing email: dave@itij.co.uk

Bangkok General Hospital Jane Bailey – Int Marketing Executive

International Medical Center jane@bgh.co.th2, Soi Soonvijai 7 www.bangkokhospital.comNew Petchburi Road Tel: +66 2310 3460Bangkok 10320 Fax: +66 2310 3367THAILAND

Baptist Health International Center of Miami Yohandra Fuentes – Finance Manager

8940 North Kendall Drive international@baptisthealth.netSuite 601-E www.baptisthealth.net/internationalMiami, Fl 33176 Tel: +1 786 596 2373USA Fax: +1 786 596 5979

Hospital Clinica Benidorm Ana DaPaz Brown – Medical Director

Avenida Alfonso Purchades 8 anapaz@clinicabenidorm.com03500 Benidorm www.clinicabenidorm.comAlicante Tel: +34 96 585 3850SPAIN Fax: +34 96 586 4345

Xanit Hospital de Benalmadena Dr. Juan Bosco Rodriguez Hurtado – Director

Camino de Gilabert s/n xanit@xanit.netBenalmadena www.xanit.net29630 Tel: +34 952 44 3119/0032Malaga Fax: +34 952 57 6661SPAIN

MEDICAL ESCORT ON COMMERCIAL AIRLINES

AFRICA

AMREF Flying Doctor Service Dr Bettina Vadera – Medical Director

Wilson Airport emergency@flydoc.orgLangata Road www.amref.orgPO Box 18617 Tel: +254 20 600 090Nairobi Fax: +254 20 344 170KENYA

AUSTRALASIA

Medical Wings Jarin Kiatfuengfoo – Director

222 Room 3602 m.w@medicalwings.comBangkok Int Airport www.medicalwings.comViphavadeo-Rangsit Rd Tel: +662 247 3392Sikan, Donmuang Fax: +662 535 4355Bangkok 10210 THAILAND

Mediflight Debra O’Brien – Operations Manager

Royal Adelaide Hospital info@mediflight.com.auNorth Terrace www.mediflight.com.auAdelaide Tel: +61 8 8223 6618SA 5000 Fax: +61 8 8223 6340AUSTRALIA

EUROPE

Medic’Air International Dr Herve Raffin – General Manager

35 Rue Jules Ferry operations@medic-air.com93170 Bagnolet www.medic-air.comParis Tel: +33 1 4172 1414FRANCE Fax: +33 1 4857 1010

NORTH AMERICA

Air Ambulance Worldwide Inc. Mark Jones – President

35246 US Hwy 19 North mjones31@tampabay.rr.com#210 www.airambulanceworldwide.comPalm Harbor Tel: +1 727 781 1198Florida 34684 Fax: +1 727 786 0897USA

Global Air Response Carlos Elcoro – Int. Programme Director

7355 S Peoria Street tcox@airresponse.netA3/ Suite 209 www.airresponse.netEnglewood Tel: +1 800 631 6565CO 80112 Fax: +1 888 631 6565USA

EUROPE

Defin Funeral Services Murat Arslanoglu – Network Manager

Muratpasa Mah. info@fempatr.comAdnan Menderes Bulvari 19 www.fempatr.comGazihan K:4 D:21 Tel: +90 242 248 8389Antalya Fax: +90 242 248 7724TURKEY

Funeraria Officia Roberto Zega Cristina Zega – General Manager

Via Clelia 26-28 cristina@zega.itRoma www.zega.itITALY Tel: +39 067 840 300

Fax: +39 067 802 488

Funeralcare International Roger Waddington221 Upper Richmond Road funeralcare.international@letsco-operate.comPutney Tel: +44 20 8788 5303London SW15 6SQ Fax: +44 20 8788 2525UK

Global Networks Funeral Assistance Cristina Almudi – Managing Director

22 Falcon Crescent info@globalnetworksfa.comEnfield www.globalnetworksfa.comEN3 4LT Tel: +44 208 350 0645UK Fax: +44 208 482 0742

MK Funeral & Transportation Services Minas Kaloumenos – General Manager

95, Ioanninon Street mkassist@hol.gr10444 Athens Tel: +30 210 5154600GREECE Fax: +30 210 5131660

Rowland Brothers International Melanie Walkling299-305 Whitehorse Road info@rowlandbrothersinternational.co.ukWest Croydon www.rowlandbrothersinternational.co.ukSurrey Tel: +44 20 8684 2324CR0 2HR Fax: +44 20 8684 8000UK

Servilusa Vanda Castro – Manager Int Dept

Agencias Funerarias SA internacional@servilusa.ptInternational Dept. www.servilusa.ptRua do Entreposto Industrial Tel: +35 121 470 63008-2 Esq, 2610-135 Amadora Fax: +35 121 470 6499PORTUGAL

NORTH AMERICA

Bergen Funeral Sevice Scott Nimmo – Funeral Director

129 E 7th St. scott@bergenfuneral.comNew York www.bergenfuneral.comNY 10009 Tel: +1 212 254 2864USA Fax: +1 201 288 5694“Servicing all of the USA, Canada, South & Central America”

HEALTHCARE CLINICSLuzDoc International Medical Serv. Ltd Dr Maria Alice Silva – Medical Director

Medical & Assistance Services luzdoc@mail.telepac.ptRua 25 de Abril, 12 www.luzdoc.comVilla da Luz Tel: +351 282 780 7008600-174, LUZ LGS Fax: +351 282 780 709PORTUGAL

Number One Health Group Dr Charlie Easmon – Director

1 Harley Street charlie@travelscreening.co.ukLondon www.executivescreen.comW1G 9QD Tel: +44 207 307 8756UK Fax: +447092 196 169

HOSPITALS

AmeriMed American Hosp & Med. Cnt. Mark R Engelman – MD

4340 E Indian School Road mengelman@amerimed-hospitals.comSTE 21, PMB 564, www.amerimed-hospitals.comPhx, Az 85018 Tel: +1 602 952 0405USA Fax: +1 602 952 1668

HOSPITALS cont.FUNERAL DIRECTORS

SERVICEDIRECTORY38

people rallied around to help those affected by theAsian tsunami of last year. The European UnionCommission pledged $4.4 million in emergencyrelief aid to the region, the US has sent $50 million,while Australia has given $5,500,000. China offered$6.2 million and sent seismologists, medicalworkers, search dogs and supplies, along withTurkey, Japan and Russia.American International Group Inc. (AIG) is donating$1 million to support relief efforts in the areasaffected by the earthquake. In addition, MartinSullivan, AIG president and chief executive officer,said, “While we are grateful that none of AIG’semployees were harmed in this tragedy, theearthquake in South Asia has left hundreds ofthousands homeless with no access to the mostbasic necessities. The funds donated will be given toorganisations throughout India and Pakistan that willbe able to most efficiently and effectively providemuch needed relief.”AIG has long-standing presence in the region.Through a joint venture in India, Tata AIG hasoffices throughout the country that provide generaland life insurance. In Pakistan, AIG Companies,headquartered in Karachi, also provide general andlife insurance. There are as yet no estimates ofinsured losses from this event, although these arenot expected to be high as insurance penetration inPakistan generally is very low, according to Willis Re.The enormous cost in human lives is made evenmore poignant as many of the dead were children,crushed when schools collapsed. “Amongstcountless tragic sights, perhaps most pitiful was thatof hundreds of parents using picks, shovels and theirbare hands in a desperate attempt to reach 850children trapped in the rubble of two schools inNorthwest Frontier Province. The frightened voicesof trapped children and the anguished wails of

parents accompanied the frantic work in the Balakotvalley in the mountains of the province borderingAfghanistan,” according to a reporter on theground. On the other side of the border in theIndian-administered part of Kashmir, authorities saidat least 1,300 people are known to have died.Meanwhile, in neighbouring India, at least 600people were reported killed.Indian tour operators have said that tourists in thearea are reported to be safe and tours arecontinuing as normal. Rajeev Kohli, marketingdirector of Creative Travel India, said: “There is noinformation of any damage to any areas of interestto tourists or of any tourists coming into harm’sway. We feel all tours to India can run normallywithout any deviations.”Amid the disaster there is a ray of hope, as bothIndia and Pakistan laid aside their ancient quarrelsfor the moment of shared grief. India offered rescueand relief assistance to neighbouring Pakistan, partsof which also suffered extensive damage in thenatural calamity.India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in amessage to Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf,said: “While parts of India have also suffered fromthis unexpected natural disaster, we are prepared toextend any assistance with rescue and relief whichyou may deem appropriate.”An editorial comment in the Indian newspaper TheHindu, expressed it thus: “The terrible tragedy mayhave taken place in disputed territory but it hasunited the two parties in a common grief. Theearthquake has damaged the bridge connecting thetwo parts of Kashmir that symbolises the thaw intheir ties. It will be repaired shortly, but the tragedyhas offered New Delhi and Islamabad a greateropportunity: that of establishing an emotional bridgebetween the two countries.”

Pakistan overwhelmed by quake crisiscontinued from p.1

“If we can identify it quickly enough and get to thesource with speed, it’s possible we can verycarefully contain it, sparing the rest of the worldfrom its damage.”Roberto Bertollini, head of the European branch ofthe WHO, commented: “We are not in thepresence of a human pandemic and the fact thatthe H5N1 virus has arrived at Europe’s doors doesnot mean that we need a change in strategy.”It is strictly an animal-borne disease at this point, headded, although its spread “raisedthe probability that some people,like farmers, in direct contact withthe sick animals, could get bird flu,but still it would be throughexceptional circumstances.”The H5N1 strain is believed to begenetically related to the Spanish fluthat caused 40 million deaths in1918, according to researchpublished in the journals Nature andScience. It can be contracted through contact withfaeces, raw meat or exhaled air of the infected birds. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said ithas $7 million to use for a bird flu education andprevention programme, and expects another $175million to be raised for use by other internationalorganisations. Almost $20 million has beenpromised in assistance to Cambodia, Laos,Indonesia and Vietnam, while Australia has pledgedan additional AU$10 million.Shigeru Omi, the WHO’s regional director for theWestern Pacific, said: “One of the biggest coalitionsin the history of public health is now taking shape.Of course, I have no illusions about the danger theworld is in, because we are dealing with a virus thatis unpredictable, firmly entrenched and continuingto spread.”The European Union (EU) health commissioner,Markos Kyprianou, has urged countries to stockpile

antiviral drugs to prepare for a future pandemic. Hesaid that the commission was proposing to set aside€1 billion to help make and distribute antivirals andnew vaccines. Mr Kyprianou said: “We have received confirmationthat the virus found in Turkey is an avian flu H5N1virus. There is a direct relationship with virusesfound in Russia, Mongolia and China.”He added that hundreds of millions of vulnerablepeople in Europe, including young children, should

be given the standard flu jab, butsought to calm fears of animminent human pandemicspreading across Europe. Thefear is that flu sufferers thatcome into contact with avian flucould act as a catalyst for thevirus to mutate.Meanwhile, economists say thata pandemic of bird flu could shutdown travel, disrupt supply

chains, overwhelm healthcare systems anddevastate economies globally. Industries hardest hitcould include airlines, travel-related services,insurance firms and healthcare; say economistSherry Cooper and global portfolio strategistDonald Coxe in Investor’s Guide to Avian Flu.Australian tourism minister, Margaret Keech, haswarned that a bird flu outbreak could be more harmfulto tourism than SARS: “SARS really did devastate thetourism industry here in Queensland because peoplewere afraid to travel. I think that potentially the impactof the bird flu could be even greater.”An Association of Corporate Travel Executives(ACTE) has met the Centre for Disease Control inthe US amid concerns of a pandemic. The ACTE’swebsite will begin listing the most credible links tohealth and travel advisories, plus other availableresources. The task force will monitor the activitiesof the CDC and WHO and report accordingly.

Europe panics at avian flu threatcontinued from p.1

AMREF Flying Doctor Service Dr Bettina Vadera – Medical Director

Wilson Airport emergency@flydoc.orgLangata Road www.amref.orgPO Box 18617 Tel: +254 20 600 090Nairobi Fax: +254 20 344 170KENYA

Atlantic Assist Adriano Gouveia – Operations Manager

Rua da Alfandega 10-2.D info@atlanticassist.comPO Box 750 www.atlanticassist.com9000-056 Funchal Tel: +351 291 214 200Madeira Fax: +351 291 214 202PORTUGAL

SOS – Hungary Assistance Dr Peter Felkai – Medical Director

Szentendrei Street 301 soshungary@invitel.huBudapest www.soshungary.huH-1039 Tel: +36 1240 0475HUNGARY Fax: +36 1439 1440

MEDICAL SCREENING

Risck Solutions Ltd Ian Findlay – Commercial Director

The Medical Centre admin@risck.co.uk238 Broomhill Road www.risck.co.ukBrislington Tel: +44 117 300 7007Bristol BS4 5RG Fax: +44 117 300 7003UK

The Medical Screening Company Glenda Cardenas – Accounts Manager

Monitor House info@monitorinternational.com2a Belmont Road www.monitorinternational.comSutton, Surrey Tel: +44 208 770 2778SM2 6DW Fax: +44 208 770 2756UK

Travel & Medical Insurance Services Michael J Turner – MD

1st Flr Suite, West House sales@travelandmedical.net46 High Street www.travelandmedical.netOrpington, Kent Tel: +44 845 058 8000BR6 0JQ Fax: +44 845 053 3000UK

RE-INSURANCE

Crispin Speers & Partners ltd David Stirling – Marketing Manager

St Clare House david.stirling@cspinsurance.com30-33 Minories www.cspinsurance.comLondon EC3N 1PE Tel: +44 20 7977 5700UK Fax: +44 20 7702 9276

TRAVEL AGENTS

Voyageur Aeromedical Travel Marc Lucus – General Manager

Voyageur Buildings marc@voyageur.co.uk43 Colston Street www.voyageur.co.ukBristol BS1 5AX Tel: +44 (0)117 927 3554UK Fax: +44 (0)117 925 5940

International Travel Insurance Journal www.itij.co.uk

MEDICAL PROVIDERS cont.

The 24 Hour Aeromedical Travel Service

Contact: Marc Lucas, Voyageur AeroMedical Travel, VoyageurBuildings, 43 Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5AX

Tel: +44 117 921 0401 Fax:+44 117 925 5940 Email: marc@voyageur.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS

Published on behalf of Voyageur Publishing & Events Ltd,Voyageur Buildings, 43 Colston Street, Bristol BS15AX, UK

The information contained in this publication has been publishedin good faith and every effort has been made to ensure itsaccuracy. Neither the publisher nor Voyageur Ltd can accept anyresponsibility for any error or misinterpretation. All liability forloss, disappointment, negligence or other damage caused byreliance on the information contained in this publication, or in theevent of bankruptcy or liquidation or cessation of the trade ofany company, individual or firm mentioned, is hereby excluded.

Printed by St. Ives (Roche) Ltd

Copyright © Voyageur Publishing 2004. Materials in this publicationmay not be reproduced in any form without permission.

INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL INSURANCE JOURNAL ISSN 1743-1522

Dick Atkins is chief counsel for InternationalRecoveries, Philadelphia, which provides globallegal assistance to the travel insurance industry. Heis in charge of International Recoveries’ legalhotline and has been involved in handlinginternational legal incidents for the past 20 years.He can be reached via email on dickatkins@aol.com

Robert Bailey is an experienced internationaljournalist and an expert on the Middle East andAfrica. He has contributed to several financialpublications including the Wall Street Journal.

Barbara Casassus is a Paris-based freelance journalist.She contributes to the American weekly magazine‘Science’, the daily newspapers Chicago Tribune and‘Baltimore Sun’, and to specialist magazines andnewsletters on economics, law, tourism and publishingin France. She wrote for the Financial Times, the TimesEducational Supplement and a number of periodicalswhile living in the Middle East and Japan.

Miles Clarke is a Sydney-based freelance journalistwith more than two decades’ experience innewspapers, radio and trade press. As a business andtravel writer, his work takes him throughout the Pacific,Southeast and East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Charlie Easmon trained at St George’s, London. Hisroute in to travel medicine and public health was throughmedical evacuations, working abroad and stints at theHospital for Tropical Disease’s travel clinic. He enjoyedseveral years on the board of the British Travel HealthAssociation and is one of the few UK medical practitionersto have obtained the International Certificate in TravelHealth from the International Society of Travel Health.

Robin Gauldie is a freelance journalist specialising intravel, aviation and related sectors. A former editor ofthe pan-European travel industry newspaper TTGEuropa, he has also edited Destination ASEAN; ABTAMagazine; and Travel Agent International. He contributesto the Times, the Sunday Telegraph, the Scotsman, theSunday Mirror, and to numerous specalist magazinesand is the author of more than 20 travel guidebooks.

iJET Travel Intelligence (www.ijet.com), the travel riskmanagement company, provides real-time travelintelligence information through its award-winningWorldcue (copyright) technology platform for trackingand communicating with travellers. iJET services arebacked by regional and category specialists from thefields of intelligence, security, travel, and health who staffan around-the-clock operations centre in Annapolis, MD.

David Ing is a freelance journalist covering mainly traveland tourism issues in Spain. He writes on air transportfor a leading international news agency, as well ascontributing special features to Newsweek and writing inin-flight magazine articles and guidebooks.

Milan Korcok is an award-winning freelance healthpolicy and economics writer who covers travelinsurance, public health, and medical education issuesin Canada and the United States. He has been writingabout health financing and policy issues in thesecountries since the 1960s and is a frequent contributorto leading North American professional journals andconsumer media. He lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Roger St Pierre is one of the UK’s most experiencedtravel, music and motoring writers and has visited 111countries on five continents. His insights appear in a widerange of consumer and trade publications. Roger’s 33published books include a history of McDonald’s, guidesto such destinations as Orlando, Moscow, Edinburgh andthe Costa del Sol, biographies of Marilyn Monroe, JamesDean, Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix and a range of cyclingbooks, the latest of which is A Bike Is For Life.

Benedict Tembo is a journalist working for the ZambiaDaily Mail, one of the country’s mass circulationnewspapers as deputy production editor. Prior tomoving to the production department three years ago,he was on the sports desk, as sports editor. He hascovered some of the high-profile events such as theAfrican Nations Cup (1998 in Burkina Faso and 2002 inMali), the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, among others.He is also board member of the Press Association ofZambia (PAZA), the country’s media professional body.

Ian Youngman is a specialist freelance insurancewriter and researcher who writes for a wide range ofpublications. As well as researching and publishingspecialist management reports on insurance, he is aghostwriter for various companies andorganisations.He previously had extensive industryexperience with insurers and brokers.

www.itij.co.uk International Travel Insurance Journal

ONTHEMOVE 39

Smile corner

Diary dates

Corporate Lesson 3:A sales representative, an administrationclerk, and the manager are walking tolunch when they find an antique oillamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out.The Genie says: “I’ll give each of you justone wish.”“Me first! Me first!” says the admin clerk.“I want to be in the Bahamas, driving aspeedboat, without a care in the world.”Poof! She’s gone.

“Me next! Me next!” says the sales rep. “Iwant to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, anendless supply of Pina Coladasand the love of my life.” Poof! He’s gone.“OK, you’re up,” the Genie says to themanager.The manager says: “I want those twoback in the office after lunch.”

Moral of the story: Always let yourboss have the first say.

1 NovemberManage Risk, Control Costs, and Improve

ROI with Master Data IntegrationInterContinental The Barclay, NY, US

www.sourcemediaconferences.com

2–4 NovemberContingency Planning & Management Expo

– CPM 2005 EastGaylord Palms Resort, Florida, US www.contingencyplanningexpo.com

3 NovemberAttaining Optimal Shareholder Value – a

Performance Management StrategyThe Peninsula, NY, US

www.sourcemediaconferences.com

6–8 NovemberThe Insurance Technology Conference –

ISOTech 2005Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, US

www.iso.com/conferences/isotech05

7–8 NovemberThe 4th Annual BITS/American Banker

Financial Services Outsourcing ConferenceThe Renaissance, DC Washington Hotel, US

www.sourcemediaconferences.com

7–8 NovemberChina Rendezvous – Meeting the

Reinsurance Needs of the Dynamic FastGrowing Market

Shanghai International Conference Centre, Chinawww.asiainsurancereview.com/Conferences

8–11 NovemberInternational Travel Insurance Conference

(ITIC)Alfonso XIII, Seville, Spain

www.itic.org.uk

9–10 NovemberOperational Management Risk Forum

The Renaissance, DC Washington Hotel, USwww.sourcemediaconferences.com

12–16 NovemberInternational Association of Emergency

Managers – IAEM 2005 Annual Conference& EMEX

Phoenix Civic Plaza, Arizona, USwww.iaem.com/events/annual/intro.htm

18 NovemberIndividual Capital Assessment: Lessons

From the First Year (ICAS)Grange City Hotel, 8 - 10 Coopers Row, London

www.abi.org.uk

28–29 November2nd Conference on Pensions & Retirement

Planning The Mandarin Oriental, Hong Kong

www.asiainsurancereview.com/Conferences

29 November – 1 DecemberEIBTM (The Global Meetings & Incentive

Exhibition)Fira Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain

www.eibtm.com

1 DecemberMaximizing Productivity, Service and Agility

in InsuranceIntercontinental The Barclay New York, NY

www.sourcemediaconferences.com

5 December2005 Saver Summit

BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London www.abi.org.uk

Change at helm ofNational JetsNational Jets Inc. of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, hasannounced the appointment of Sam Robbin aspresident, as Thomas Boy steps aside after 45 yearsof service. Robbin has several years of airlinemanagement experience and has been National’svice president for the past nine years.

Woods joinsSwinglehurstLloyd’s broker Swinglehurst Ltd has announced theappointment of Neil Woods, formerly generalmanager of Mercury Assistance, to the position ofbusiness development manager for travel and mediaservices. “Neil brings with him a broad range of skills andexpertise in the travel insurance and assistanceindustry, which will be invaluable to us and ourclients as we continue to expand our bespoke travelofferings to the UK and international markets,” saidGordon Devlin, partner at Swinglehurst Ltd, anindependent Lloyd’s and international broker basedin London, with representation in Shanghai, Rio deJaneiro and Miami.

Moving on fromPenningtonsCostas Andrea has recently resigned fromPennington Solicitors and has been placed ongarden leave. Prior to Penningtons, Costas ran hisown practice, Andrea & Co, for just over six yearsbefore merging with Penningtons in November2003. Costas has run a focus group at both theEuropean and International Conference for a coupleof years as well as writing a number of articles forITIJ. When ITIJ contacted Penningtons, no-one wasavailable for comment.

Lloyd’s loss isPrudential’s gainThe Board of the UK’s Prudential plc announcedthat Nick Prettejohn has left his post as CEO ofLloyd’s of London to head the domestic operationsof the country’s second largest life insurer. He willreplace current UK head Mark Wood as of 1January 2006.Prettejohn has been Lloyd’s CEO since 1999, andhas been instrumental in steering the Londonmarket through some of the most dramaticrestructurings in its 300 plus years. Prettejohn hasoverseen the changeover from self-regulation tosupervision by the UK’s Financial Services Authority;the adoption of a franchise system; theestablishment of new processing for back officeprocedures in partnership with Xchanging;harmonization of wordings and procedures withLondon’s International Underwriting Association,and the changeover from three year accounting toan annual system – to name a few. He also guidedLloyd’s through 9/11, last year’s hurricanes, as wellas working on Katrina, and leaves Lloyd’s with asolid balance sheet.Prudential’s Group CEO Mark Tucker commented:“Nick’s background and experience mean that he iswell suited to lead our UK Insurance Operations tothe next stage in their development. He is widelyrespected in the industry and across the financialcommunity. He has broad and relevant experienceof the financial services market and has a trackrecord of implementing strategic change successfullyand will bring a fresh, external perspective to thebusiness. I look forward to working with him at thisexciting time for the UK and the Group.” He alsothanked Wood for his contributions on behalf ofPrudential.“I am delighted to be joining Prudential at thisexciting time in the Group’s development,”Prettejohn stated. “There is huge potential for thebusiness in the UK, and I look forward to workingwith the Board and the management team todeliver strong, profitable growth.

TMCA addsconsulting expertiseTMCA is pleased to announce the addition of DrColin Plotkin as medical director to their team.Previously working as a consultant for the well-knownNew York-based assistance and cost containmentorganisation, he brings with him 14 valuable years ofexperience in the travel insurance industry.In addition to TMCA, Dr Plotkin has and still doeswork as a medical director to several travel insurers.Dr Plotkin will be heading up the medical referralsand giving expert medical advice on complex andlegal cases. His expertise will also be utilised todetermine the transport and moving needs of patients.

European expansionfor OneWorldJeanette Harper has been appointed BusinessDevelopment Manager Europe for OneWorldAssist, and is located in London, UK. With over 14years of experience in marketing consultancy andbusiness development, Jeanette is responsible forexpanding markets for OneWorld Assist’s claimsassistance and cost containment services to UK andEuropean insurers and third party administrators.