China’s Gift: Carona Virus Pandemic Threatens Insurers in two ways and one is way More Costly

Travel Insurance Providers may face claims for cancellations for travel plans yet taken. But the HUGE risk is covering costs for people ALREADY overseas. That’s way more costly

 

For people with travel insurance taken out prior to the #CaronaVirus being made a declared event, getting your money back will be relatively straight forward. In fact for most part, now that countries are closing their borders, the risks are going back onto the providers,because they cannot claim a lost booking if NO ONE is allowed to travel in. Refunds on flights will be easy to manage, and there will be a few claims for those bookings with a no refund element from the airline, but they tend to be at the lower cost market.

For Insurers the huge costs (potential losses) are having people STUCK overseas.

And for many Australians, traveling to Europe or North America during our summer, to work the ski fields, see the northern lights and so on is a hige draw card.

Travel Insurers need to start thinking about getting people home soon, or face months and months of paying for private hotels rooms, food etc for travelers stuck overseas. Instead of say a change over cost of change of plans costing a few hundreds or maybe even a couple of thousands, Travel Insurers like RACV, Travel Insurers Direct, and Covermore face accommodation and sustenance charges that could get into fifteen, twenty or thirty thousand dollars PER CLIENT if their customers are stuck in no fly or no travel zones. And let’s not talk about the costs if one of themis stuck in the rorting US medical system

China’s Gift has a fat tail. Right now, like an unhappy cat, that tail is swiping all the good trinkets off the bench!

The Future of Money

May 7, 2012

Have just spent a few hours discussing the Future of Money, hosted by James Bibby at Microsoft in Sydney and facilitated by Peter Vander Auwera from SWIFT/Innotribe. I’d like to flag that everyone understood that the session was way too short for such a big topic and everyone would agree that we just scratched the…

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Six Emerging Trends in Corporate Sustainability

May 1, 2012

Ernst & Young and GreenBiz have completed a survey of business executives looking at the development of Corporate Sustainability around the world. The report shows that there has been a clear rise in awareness; that employees are a core source driving sustainability actions; that reduction of costs is a core appeal and that return on…

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The Future of War

Apr 23, 2012

On the eve of ANZAC day here in Australia ABC Radio Darwin’s Vicki Kerrigan chats with futurist Marcus Barber on the future of war – what the future triggers of war might be and how war will be fought   Increasing technology or less technology?  Haves versus the have nots?  On a pretty serious topic…

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The Future of Workplace Design

Apr 17, 2012

In this chat with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Radio Darwin, we chat about workplace design and the need to create functional workplaces – something the ‘open-plan’ model fails utterly at delivering. Click on the link below   Futurist Marcus Barber on ABC Radio Darwin discussing the future of workplace design and the challenges of dysfunctional workplaces…

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Happiness Makes the World Go ‘Round

Apr 9, 2012

Columbia University’s Earth Institute have just made publicly available their World Happiness Report, joining the expanding list of happiness reports emerging ultimately from Bhutan’s Happiness Index. There’s some interesting results in this one and some that you might expect were more obvious, like the idea that at a certain point, more money won’t make you…

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Local Councils’ Role in Economic Activity

Apr 4, 2012

Whilst the main thrust of Australian economic activity is said to be in the hands of the Federal Government, we should not overlook the significant role that Local Council Government’s can have. As the Federal Government wrestles with falling taxation revenues and an apparent inability to get the message across about distributing the income of…

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Eat or Extract – Farming versus Mining in NT and Australia

Mar 26, 2012

Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber chats with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Radio Darwin about the challenges facing the Northern Territory, the farming and mining sectors. In summing up the emerging signs of a clash between agricultural uses of land and land use for resource and mining needs, Marcus uses the phrase ‘Eat or Extract’ as the…

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Top 10 Tips for Resilience

Mar 25, 2012

As most of you know I nominated this year as the 2012 International Year of Resilience because frankly, that’s what I reckon large chunks of the world need right now. The twitter feed is #2012YearofResilience. I sent a few of these tips out at the start of the year and have seen a few of…

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Is more foresight needed for Urban Planning in Darwin?

Mar 12, 2012

A new city is due to emerge in Darwin over the coming couple of years and the key question is – what sort of attention is being paid to weather related disasters in the design phase? Paul Dale on ABC Radio Darwin chats with futurist Marcus Barber about planning and weather. You can download the…

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After the Rains – thinking about Urban Planning in a future of havoc weather

Mar 5, 2012

Dorothea Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’ is best known for its second verse – “I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains”. As vast tracts of Australia again face the prospect of massive floods I wonder if our Urban Planners ever consider the significance of…

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