QUESTIONS around
whether travel agents
will be able to continue
to facilitate the sale of travel
insurance without a formal
qualification have surfaced
in response to the Financial
Services Board’s (FSB)
investigations into whether
stricter regulations are needed
in the industry.
Uriah Jansen, md of
Oojah Travel Protection,
which administers Hollard
Travel Insurance, says the
industry may soon experience
significant change with
regard to how travel agents
facilitate the sale of cover.
She says the FSB has taken
an increased interest in the
way in which agents are
engaging with insurance,
asking insurance providers to
provide stats around this. In
the last year alone, Hollard
Travel Insurance has been
asked to provide a number
of reports relating to the way
travel insurance is being sold
in the South African market,
Uriah says.
One possible outcome of
these investigations is that
agents may be required
to register with the FSB in
order to legally sell travel
insurance, she adds. This may
prove to be a positive thing
for the industry, says Uriah.
“At the moment, agents are
not allowed to give advice
concerning travel insurance
– essentially their hands are
tied. The industry needs to
look at ways of helping them
become fully qualified.”
Simmy Micheli, manager
of sales and marketing at
TIC, says travel insurance is
something of a problem child
in the insurance industry and
that technically travel agents
are not allowed to “sell” travel
insurance at all. “However,
the FSB understands that if
it were to enforce regulations
around this strictly it would
compromise the traveller as
few people would phone their
insurance broker in order to
take out travel insurance,”
she says. “Intermittently
the FSB relooks at what the
industry is doing in terms of
selling travel insurance. Every
18 months or so the FSB
takes an increased interest in
what the industry is doing.”
The FSB would not give
details on what they were
investigating or why, however,
the Board told TNW that
it was in the process of
identifying whether there are
specific customer risks that
it needed to address, either
through existing regulation
or through enhanced market
conduct standards or
guidance in the future.
Meanwhile, the FSB said
it was still in the process
of gathering information
and engaging with several
insurers. “We have not
made any decisions
regarding possible stricter
regulation yet,” says Farzana
Badat, head of Insurance
Compliance.
