July 2023 Market Update – Accident & Health

Corporate Travel

The travel industry was heavily impacted by COVID-19. Pleasingly, travel globally has returned to pre COVID-19 conditions. Australians have a strong desire to travel for both business and leisure with the international travel market returning strongly despite uncertain economic signals.

As previously advised, insurers had slowly started to update their policy wordings to cover illness and injury related to COVID-19 in the same way as any other sickness. Most insurers’ policies now have no COVID-19 exclusion.

The insurance market continues to build towards the pre-pandemic premium pool. Insurer competition is increasing, and renewal premiums can be expected at “rollover” rates.

Group Personal Accident and Sickness

(Voluntary Workers, Journey, and Sports Insurance)

The Group Personal Accident market was not impacted to the extent Corporate Travel was affected by COVID-19. This is primarily due to the emergence of the trend of working from home. Insurers offered coverage options to cover injuries sustained in the course of working from home, we understand that these coverage initiatives performed profitably for insurers. Pricing and coverage remain steady. There has been a slight uplift in journey claims with more people returning to the office. Renewal pricing has remained between rollover and 5 per cent.

Inpatriate/Expatriate Medical Expenses

The opportunity for employees to work abroad by businesses is growing rapidly as worldwide travel has returned to normal. Most COVID-19 related exclusions for Expatriate Medical policies have now been removed across a number of insurers. In terms of pricing, with these policy classes being relatively stagnant over previous years, insurers will be monitoring their premiums for this portfolio over the next 6 months with no rate increases expected.