The Conversation That Could Save Your Clients Thousands

In this episode of The Travel Agent Guide Podcast, Byrd and Haley dive into one of the most important conversations every travel advisor should have with their clients, travel insurance.

Many travelers see travel insurance as an optional expense, but knowing how to confidently educate clients about coverage, respond to objections, and build insurance into your booking process can protect your clients from unexpected financial losses while protecting your business as well.

Join us as we share practical strategies, real client stories, and proven techniques for presenting travel insurance with confidence, without feeling pushy or salesy.

00:00 Why travel insurance should never be optional

00:52 Why "I don't need travel insurance" should concern every advisor

01:43 Building travel insurance into your client workflow

03:04 Protecting yourself legally with insurance acceptance and declination forms

04:31 What travel insurance doesn't always cover

06:53 Why advisors should never answer policy-specific questions

08:51 Following up after clients initially decline insurance

10:24 Why documenting every insurance decision matters

12:39 Introducing travel insurance during the consultation process

13:45 Handling the "We're young and healthy" objection

15:17 Explaining trip interruption and travel delay coverage

15:47 Why medical emergencies abroad can become extremely expensive

17:16 Lost baggage claims and real-life travel insurance success stories

18:37 Using assistants and automation to quote travel insurance

19:19 Protecting your cancellation fees with insurance

20:45 Commission protection for travel advisors

21:29 Understanding the policies you sell

23:06 Staying up to date with changing insurance policies

23:32 Valuable policy add-ons clients appreciate

24:19 Third-party insurance vs. supplier insurance

26:33 Why comprehensive coverage matters more than the cheapest option

28:19 Final takeaways for confidently selling travel insurance

32:15 Travel Agent Guide Summit announcement

Whether you're a new travel advisor or a seasoned professional, this episode will help you confidently educate clients, reduce liability, and make travel insurance a natural part of every booking.

Travel insurance isn't just another product—it's one of the best ways to protect your clients, build trust, and demonstrate your expertise.

🎧 Subscribe for more practical strategies, honest conversations, and actionable advice to help you build a stronger travel business.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

If you're a travel agent that's not pushing back every single time your client says, No, I don't want insurance, like you're genuinely not doing them a service. I think a lot of clients just simply don't understand credit card insurance, even insurance from like the cruise lines and some of these uh tour operators, the packages just aren't very comprehensive. And at the end of the day, your clients are believing they're protected, but they probably aren't. So you need to push back. And your job really with insurance is to educate. And honestly, at the end of the day, if you educate them with the right partner, you're gonna make a lot more money that way.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome to the travel agent guide, the podcast pulling back the curtain on what it really takes to be a travel agent. We're talking real life: the challenges, the wins, the money, the mistakes, and the growth. Whether you've been in the travel industry for years or are new to it, we're in this together and you're exactly where you need to be.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

All right. By the end of today's podcast, one thing we want you to walk away with is the understanding of how to push back on travel insurance when people say no, because I don't want or I don't need travel insurance should be the absolute scariest thing you hear as a travel agent. The reality is that so many things go wrong, and you will be the one that they blame at the end of the day. So we're gonna talk today about a handful of ways to protect yourself legally, uh, stories, things like that to have in your back pocket, um, how to handle objections, and really at the end of it, how to make sure you are selling the highest commissionable product that a travel agent can sell, travel insurance. Um, Haley, let's go ahead and bring you into this conversation really early. Talk to us about your clients. Is it something that you see every client you have just accepts travel insurance? What does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:43

No, definitely not. I'd probably say 70% accepted, 30% do not. I don't even know how accurate that is, but it sounds about right. So, what I always do, and I will dive into this, is during my process of sending out my form to my client where I'm attaining their names and dates of birth, on there I actually have a section where it's specifically asking them if they want travel insurance. And it has a big blurb on what travel insurance looks like. I also notate in there, travel insurance costs are anywhere from five to 10% additional. We all know it runs into several different factors to determine this cost. Um, but during that process, when they e-sign um terms and conditions, they are basically telling me yes, they do or no, they do not. So that's kind of my first process of seeing. And I'll tell you, even if they mark no, I still send over an insurance quote every time. Let them visually see it. Sometimes they look at it and they're like, oh, it's only $240. It's a peace of mind, it may be worth it for me. So just because they say no, I don't take that as a no. I still want to give them the option for it to be a yes because, like, truly, in my heart at this point, you know, almost six years into the industry, I've seen a lot happen. I traveled with travel insurance on um for myself and my family. So I think it is really important to add on.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Absolutely. I mean, it's one of those, I love, I was going to ask and kind of push you on the like, well, if they fill out no, but let's start with the first step. You need to be covering yourself legally with an insurance denial. So let's say something actually does go wrong on a trip. There is a way that a client can sue you based on the fact that you didn't even offer insurance to them. So all you want really from them is in writing that they didn't want insurance. That can be as simple as a text message, but ideally you have some sort of legal blurb with a signature that basically at the end of the day you could CYA, cover your ass, and make sure that you're safe from a client that may want to, you know, produce some kind of frivolous lawsuit. So step one is have a way for them to either accept or deny. In our form that we have, if they accept, they're not buying it. It's just basically saying you want it. But then there's also that legal legalese around travel insurance doesn't cover a lot of things. So I don't know how many people were around during the pandemic, but when you look at the big policies like Allianz and travel insured, they didn't cover pandemics. Now, Aliens and travel insured, and most of them paid back money to clients and they had no problem standing up and doing it because they knew the negative PR at the end of the day would have killed them. But technically, if they wanted to, they could have said, like, no, this is against. Haley, do you know of other things that travel policies don't typically cover that people anticipate they would?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Well, I think even when we look at cancel for any reason with CFAR, like there's very fine print on that and what cancel for reason for any reason is. Also, some insurance companies will only still pay you up to 80% of costs that you actually spent. I actually was just chatting with an advisor the other day who had a client in destination. The client had a cancel for any reason policy, and they were getting on a flight from I want to say like Munich to Barcelona. They decided that they didn't want a layover in a certain country. So they text the travel agents to say, hey, I have cancel for any reason. Can I cancel this flight and rebook a different flight? And travel agents, like, no, that's not how cancel for any reason works, right? Like you're already in destination. You can't just get reimbursed for that flight. And it was a completely different airline. So it wasn't even here's the option of canceling credit, whatever. Um, so yeah, I think a lot of those common mistakes of really understanding what it is. That's why when you get an insurance policy and it's 72 pages long, it's a lot of reading material to really dive through and understand.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Well, and some of the things that that came up after the pandemic that were super interesting to me that I didn't understand before. If I'm gonna be very honest, I did not understand travel insurance before the pandemic. Post-pandemic, I now have a PhD in travel insurance. Um, but some of the big things weren't covered that just still kind of blow my mind. So if you read through those policies, you'll see like war is not covered, government shutdown not covered. And I'm like, okay, tell me again how that works. Like, how could you, you know, if a country just all of a sudden goes to war, clearly my clients are not gonna want to go there. How are these things not covered? And essentially the way that I've seen it be put into play is that they cover it. They just kind of want an out if for some reason they can't. So force majeure is not covered. I mean, there it's like all the big things simply aren't covered. The reasons that are covered are more the commonalities that you would expect, right? So if there's some kind of medical emergency, uh, the loss of a of an immediate family member, things like that are the ones that are covered. But those big things that I think people just assume happen in their travel insurance, they're not part of it, right? Did did you run into any insurance problems where they weren't covering something for war or getting away from the state?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah, I was actually just thinking of one bird. So we had a client that actually got pregnant.

unknown 7:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Um, and we realized that pregnancy is I don't know if it was a preexisting medical condition, but within the time frame, she basically wasn't covered to be able to not go on her trip for not being able to go for medical reasons. So I think again, we'll kind of dive into just a quick reminder to everybody listening we are not insurance professionals, right? We're just lawyers. Yeah, we're going, we're going off of our experience. I will always tell a client, if you have specific questions, you really need to reach out to Alions, you have to call travel insurance, you need to speak to a licensed travel, um, a licensed insurance agent because I can give you my advice and feedback, but I there's a fine line between wanting to tell them something that's not accurate, right? Um, so with that said, with this specific policy, the woman became pregnant, but it was considered a pre-existing condition, which her insurance policy didn't charge the pre-existing condition. So there are a lot of things that the insurance will come in and tell you, oh, by the way, in this fine print, this is you were not able to be covered for this.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

How frustrating is that? I will I will tell you, one of my most frustrating moments of my life, I had to go through fertility treatments for my second child, which if anybody out there is doing that, I my heart goes out to you. It was not a fun time. And it had been years. And then I, of course, planned a vacation because I was like, I'm done with this. It's never gonna happen. I'm never gonna get my baby. And uh two days before we left, I found out I was pregnant. And what I had booked was I had booked a five-day scuba diving trip. So you can't go scuba diving when you're pregnant and had to cancel everything, and I was so heartbroken. Anyways, we also did not have travel insurance. So I have learned my lesson 800 times over at this point. Um, okay, let's go back to that second point, Haley. I loved how you talked about the client marks no on the legal document, and you don't necessarily just say, okay, throw your hands up in the air and move away. So do you just send the quote anyway and the client's like, did she not see it? Or do you pick up the phone and talk to them or shoot them a text?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah, great question. So we have in my process, right? And something to notate to with our pre-departure team at Sava, I have, I no longer do quotes myself, right? I send it off to our team to go ahead and do it. They get the email sent over to the client. What in most platforms that you use, which I usually like 90% of the time, I'm using travel insured at this point. You can actually generate a client link that the email will send out to them, but you can copy and paste that link and throw it right into a text to clients. So the other day I have clients leaving in a month. Again, they mark no, but they're spending 20 grand to go to Europe in peak season. I'm like, please just get the insurance. I, you know, just get it. Um, so I've sent it over via text to them as well. So usually they're getting it in their email, plus they're getting it a text for me. If at that point they determine no, okay, no, I know I did everything that I can. That way, when they come back, if there is trip interruption or something does happen, then they know I tried to warn them, right? And they can come back and be like, oh, Haley did try to tell us. Um, so that's kind of why I do it in that sense. And I think another important thing to notate too, on there, you may get clients who mark yes, right? Then after the process, you get them the quote. Then they're like, oh, wait, I don't think I want to spend the extra 500 bucks right now. And you go back and you try to get it as, you know, whatever policy matches their budget in that sense. But if they do mark yes and they decide no, I send them over another form just to resubmit um saying that they do want no, in fact, now. So I make sure I'm still covering myself in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

That's a really great call out because I have I definitely have people for a while I leaned on Alleons as my preferred provider. And Allianz can be quite expensive. I mean, period.it is you make the most commission off of it. Um, so I always liked Allianz as a policy. I will also say at the end of the day, they backed up every pandemic claim I had. Um, so it led me to be very loyal to them for years. I've now moved over to travel insured for a handful of reasons. But with Allianz, it was interesting to me that yeah, I wanted the client to see the quote, but sometimes it was a little sticker shock. Most of the times it was no problem. But when they came back and they might say, Oh, you know, I actually have travel insurance on my credit card, I would kind of explain to them, like, that's fine, but because I'm not booking the policy, I need you to refill out this form for me. And all they have to do is click one button, click it to no instead of yes, and then they would send it over. But that's a great call out, Haley, because if they marked yes and then you never purchased a travel insurance policy for them, something goes wrong, they could absolutely come back to you and say, no, no, no, I told you I wanted travel insurance. Now this is on you. And that is not a good situation to be in. That is um at the end of the day, it's all on you, and you want to make sure that you have everything covered. So make sure we do that.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Even if they like text me and say, Hey, Haley, we're gonna decline it. I still send them over that form and get the signature. And then whatever, there could be months before you're hopping on a pre-departure call, but it is one of my pre-departure call checks, right? Where I get in, I'm like, okay, did they want insurance? Did we not? Was there a delay in getting it? We talk about it again. Usually they still have 14 to 10 days prior to travel. Then I will make them get into their email on the phone with me during pre-departure just to sign that off so I know we're good to go. And then I can take a deep breath and not have to stress about it.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

I love it. Okay, so I start selling insurance during the consultation. Um, so during the consultation, I always mention like, hey, I'm not gonna include insurance on the package. Um, when we're talking about budget, just letting you know if you want insurance, we wait until we wrap up the whole package to buy insurance. Um, that is basically planting the idea of I'm gonna have the second thing because what I don't want is for anybody to feel nickel or dimed. That is not the go-to that I'm looking for here. And then when I'm on the presentation call is when I usually double down on insurance. So at that point, they filled out the paperwork one way or the other, and I kind of just go into any conversations we have. Now, some people just immediately go, Bird, we're we're taking the insurance. Great. I'm not gonna tell you stories. When they say they're not, I kind of wait for a second, like just take a deep breath, give some space and give some silence to it because almost always what they're gonna do is they're gonna justify it. And it's this beautiful moment for you to take the objection and spin it around on them. So one of the ones I hear most commonly is simply oh yeah, we're young and healthy, we don't need it. Right? Have you heard that? Right. That feels like especially honeymoon are super common. Um, this is where you need to have a couple stories in your back pocket that you could pull out and just say, You I don't want you to feel pressured. You're more than welcome to make your decision. Let me tell you a quick story just so you understand like things that could happen. Um, so the young and healthy, I mean, one of my easiest ones is we had a couple on their honeymoon. They were in Croatia, and the guy is getting out of the hot tub, slipped and fell. He hit his head, ended up having a brain aneurysm, and spent three weeks in the hospital in Croatia. The bills were over $300,000. Allianz covered every penny. Like it was amazing, but super scary for the entire experience. They had someone out there at the hospital with the wife translating, helping arrange the additional stay, all the things. Like it was incredible what happened. But that's something that could happen to anyone. Young and healthy doesn't matter, right? At the end of the day. Haley, do you have other objections you commonly hear with travel insurance?

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Yeah, I think that's it. Like, oh yeah, we don't, you know, do we need it? They do, I do have a lot of clients ask. Like, I explain. That's where I come in and use my expertise to explain. Just so you know, your medical insurance outside of the US is not a thing, right? So here's a couple examples of what could happen. Um, I do spend a lot of time around that as a whole, but one of the biggest things that when a client does object, I explain to them, you know, trip interruption is where I see a lot of claims filed on, you know, flights getting grounded, missing a connect, missing an entire day of your trip, um, transfers just not showing up peak season in Europe. Things like that happen. So that's where I kind of go in and explain to them, okay, well, you may not need it for medical, but did you know it also covers you for trip interruption? And then we dive into some education around that.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Oh, I love that. Yeah, it's great to make sure you're understanding what they might be interested in. Um, the other one I hear a lot is like, oh no, we'll roll the dice, right? Like that's a common kind of we'll we'll take the risk, don't worry about it. And I like to explain to them that medical facilities don't work the same around the world that they do in the US. Um, it's common, like I a couple of years back, I had a high school student in Spain, and she actually ended up with appendicitis, had to have emergency surgery, no big deal. However, um, at least at that time in Spain, you had to pay that bill before they would let that child leave the hospital. So she was there for five days because the insurance now, granted, surgeries don't cost what they do in America because of all of our issues, but um, the surgery itself was $25,000, almost $30,000, including her stay. And her family had $30,000, thankfully, because they did not have insurance. Um, they had 30 grand, but it was tied up in stocks. And they're like, well, it's gonna take me like 48 hours to get it in stocks, and then I've got to wire it over to Spain. And anyways, she was there for days. They would not let her leave the hospital until the bill was paid. And I thought that's insane because it's not how it works here, right? And I like to take that story and make sure people understand it absolutely okay to roll the dice. Just make sure you can cover yourself and you're ready to do it immediately if something does happen. You just don't know. I mean, appendicitis comes out of nowhere at any age. There's nothing you can do about that. Healthy, non-healthy, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Yeah, it's very true.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Um, tell us a little bit. Any other any other cover yourself stories that we need to think about? Anything else you use in the objection phase?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Really trip interruptions. I talk about bags being lost because it happened to me and I did have an allianz insurance policy and they did cover me on it. Um, so that's another thing I talk about. I had my bags get stuck in Boston on my way to Rome. Um, when I got to Rome, I realized the bag wasn't there. I actually realized it wasn't there in Boston, but nobody from Delta listened to me because I had an air tag. Um, so whatever. Long story short, when I got into Italy, by the time I filed a claim with Swiss port, got they tracked my bag, got it to me. It wasn't until I was on my third day and I was in Florence at that point. So I had to go and I had to find clothes. I had to pay for um the place we were staying to do my laundry of what I was wearing. Every single day I had to send it out to get washed. Um, I had uh one outfit with me, but it wasn't like the out exploring. It was a nice dress I wasn't gonna wear for dinner, which I have quickly learned another travel hack. From now on, my husband and I will be splitting half of our clothes in one luggage versus the other, but that's a story for another day. Um, so, anyways, that's an example I use often because it did happen to me. So I came home, Alian's actually covered me up to $100 per day in cost for clothes that I had to spend out of pocket. And they did get me a check shortly after I came home and filed the claim.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

That's amazing. I love it. Okay, one more thing I want you guys to think about when you're quoting insurance. And again, if you have an assistant, this is the perfect thing to let the assistant do. Um, so our guest experience team is fully trained. Anyone at Sava that uses the guest experience team, just shoot them an email and just say, insurance Smith, they're gonna know what to do. So they will quote our preferred insurance provider and they will go in and just send all that automatically to your client. Um, a cool piece is that the client can just click on it and purchase it right there, and you're never involved in any of it. You just get an email saying, hey, this has been purchased, and you get to collect on that commission. Um, okay, so that's one thing we need to worry about. But what I would say is that we always take our cancelles and we add it to the cost of the trip. So our cancellation fees are $200 per person. This is simply to protect you from losing all that commission you lose when somebody cancels. Um, it's not huge, it's usually not the same as a commission, but it is something. It is better than walking away with nothing. So we explain to clients when they say they have to cancel, like, I'm so sorry, that's terrible. Um, our policy is we do have to charge you $200 per cancellation, but because you purchase this insurance policy through us, don't worry, I'm gonna send you an invoice for it and you're gonna be able to submit that and you're gonna get reimbursed your cancellation policy. So I think that's a really unique thing because I walk away with more money in my pocket and they get to walk away fully immersed as well. It makes having to charge that cancellation fee so much easier. So, what I do is if the trip is $2,000 or $2,000, $10,000 and we have two people, so $200 times two, so $400 in cancellation fees, the amount that I insure would be $10,400 versus just $10,000. And that way you can get your cancellation fee back and they can get the full amount of their trip back if they need. Um, so that's a really smart thing to kind of think through and cover yourself a little bit easier. Um, those things have paid for us in dividends at the end of the day. Um, any other pro tips that you've learned about insurance, how to quote it, what you usually go after, Haley?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, I think on that notebird with a commission, I know there are very specific policies that have commission protection. So again, when you are booking a $20,000 trip and above and you're making a $3,000 commission, you already have that on your books and you're projecting it into the next six months or year, right? So by selling an insurance policy that covers um commission protection, which I've only used once through an alliance policy. Um, but yeah, I was able to get a check written out to me for the amount of the projected commission that I had on the trip. So I think that's an important factor too. So yeah, when you're selling insurance to your clients, you're selling it for them, but also for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, that's a great way to point out too. I would also say kind of what whatever policy you decide is yours that you want to sell most often, make sure you understand it and the details. I I had a client several years back that I'll never forget because her child essentially at the end of the day had a panic attack and didn't want to get on the plane. So they decided not to go on the vacation, which is their own prerogative. Um, but the client assumed because she had medical coverage for the trip that this was a cancelable reason. Um It wasn't because the child wasn't hospitalized for the medical condition and it required you know a doctor saying this is a serious enough that she should not get on the plane. And uh there there was a lot of confusion and frustration around those things. Now, luckily the client never called and said, Hey, is this covered? We're not getting on the plane. All of it was after the fact, so it was a decision they made, but I would say just like really know your policies and really understand like this would work, but this wouldn't. I would not say to give advice. It is more along the lines of for you to feel confident in what you're selling. Have you ever had anything not covered, Haley, that that maybe they thought would have been?

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Not not specifically. I think for the most part, I really truly educate my clients on what the coverages are. I make sure they're looking at it prior. Um, again, the questions are always, okay, if COVID or pandemic happens, things like that, where I say, here's the fine free, go ahead and read it. And I just refer them back to the travel um or back to the insurance agency because I don't ever want to be responsible for telling them something. Not only that, things are always rapidly changing in this industry, right? So I think it's important if you are selling one or two specific policies, bring in your BDM and have a conversation with them every six months to see what's being updated and what has changed. I think that's really important to stay educated on what you sell.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

That's fantastic advice. I really love that. Um, thinking of like the changes too and which policies to sell and what it looks like. I'll say one of the things I do like about travel insured is they have an add-on to their policies for uh pet protection. Basically, if you have an old animal that passes away right before your trip or gets really sick right before your trip or whatever, that's a covered reason. And I have so many clients that just truly genuinely love their animals at the end of the day. And it makes a big difference to them to be like, hey, this is another layer of protection. Um, so I love to do like the baseline plus a couple add-ons if it makes sense. And it also opens up some really great conversations with my clients that I just would never have had. Um, so Haley, do you, when we're thinking about policies and what to sell, do you always sell like the traveled insured or the allianz, or do you oftentimes lean on the tour operator insurance or the cruise line insurance? What does that look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

I'm glad you brought that up, Bird. Um, no, so I definitely at this point, I have I just sell Allianz and travel insured. I have done tons of education with, you know, like Faye, IMG. I I just figured at this point the product being offered is either the same through Allianz and Travel Insured. The BDMs are fantastic. I have a great relationship, so I'm confident in selling that product. Um I learned the first two years that supplier insurance is a I just didn't like it. I put myself in a couple situations, which I'm happy to share. But one of my favorites is insurance through, let's say, VAX, right? Fung vacations. I always thought of it one stop shop, easy. I'm gonna protect my client, done. Um, and clients at that point, I remember I was selling so many travel credit insurance policies, which I'm telling you right now, I know it seems like the easy option. It's an add-on, it's a sell, but do not do it. It is, it's just annoying. I had one client who knew it was a travel credit insurance. I'm not kidding you when I tell you, they canceled three times on that same credit. Three times on the same credit because they knew they lost, they forfeited the amount of insurance, but they kept changing it. And then I finally got done. I said, I'm done. I'm not booking through Simplier anymore. I'm gonna book it third party. I'm gonna protect my commission. I'm going to make them file a claim and make it a little more, you know, this is what it is versus here's the easy cancellation. Um, so, anyways, that's how I pivoted for me.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

It's funny you say that because I will tell you, I don't, I don't ever pitch a CFAR to any of my clients. And I have so many advisor friends that say all they sell is CFAR. And I was like, you know what? I don't want my client to know that it's super easy to cancel. At the end of the day, I want them to be as committed to the trip as I am to them. Like I spent a lot of time on this. You really want to go. I know you want to go or I wouldn't have booked you. So at the end of the day, you should be committed to the trip, which is why I tend to lean on some of these other policies because if something happens, absolutely you should be reimbursed for it. But if you just don't like that it's gonna rain next week, I that's super frustrating to me at the end of the day. So I tend to lean away from policies like that and lean into really high coverage for medical, medical evacuation, stuff like lean into those like really comprehensive policies for that. Um, I will also say I've looked into a couple of the cruise line policies and I won't name any of them specifically, but I've seen like medical evacuation was on my mind, and I've seen some of them where the medical evac is like 25 grand or 50 grand. If you're in the middle of the ocean and you need a helicopter to bring you to a hospital, it's not a $25,000 trip. I could tell you that much. So I'm like, if I'm gonna talk my client into insurance and have this conversation with them, I'm gonna explain why they need the better coverage at the end of the day, why the million-dollar policy makes sense for them, especially if they're elderly. You know, I think it's really hard to have these conversations with people over 80 because once you're over 80, travel insurance just goes through the roof. And I understand how frustrating that is for them, but in that same breath, like those are the people that the most things happen to. Um, so, anyways, I I tend to also shy away from the tour, the cheap insurance options because they typically don't really cover what you need. And then it just leads towards a lot of frustration with the clients at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I also think on that note, Bird, it's it's those policies that are attached to a lot of the cruising, they're pretty expensive. Like when I'm thinking cruising, I'm thinking river cruising. The insurance policies are very high, but you're only earning between like 10 and 13% off of those. Why would you not just take that out, go quote it, and now you're making between 28 and 38% towards uh doing it yourself? To me, it's worth a couple extra hundred dollars at that point. Um, so that's definitely another reason I've pivoted to selling the way I do.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, I love it. Um, okay. So at the end of the day, I think the big takeaways that we're kind of thinking of through as we talk through insurance is have a couple of really great stories that can kind of relate to any of the objections, whether it's we're young and healthy, my credit card covers it, whatever the objection, we'll risk it, whatever the objections are. Like, have a story ready to tell and don't be pushy about it, but make sure you get it out there. Because, in my opinion, travel insurance, I like selling it and I push it because it makes my life easier at the end of the day. When I just say, Yep, you're gonna get all your money back, they're not mad at me. When I say nope, you're not gonna dime back, they all of a sudden it's my problem and it's my fault, and I'm the one that did this. So, big takeaway is have some stories in your back pocket. If you don't have a story, steal mine. Who cares? No one's gonna know that your client on their honeymoon did not spend two weeks in a hospital in Croatia. So use a story because that's a real story that actually happened. Use a story. It doesn't matter if it's yours or not. Use a friend's story and just have something to make it more relatable. The other big thing I would say is make sure that you absolutely have someone else pulling your insurance quotes for you. That's an easy admin thing to take off your plate. Um, and my third big takeaway is simply know the policy you're selling and make sure you're not selling kind of a half-assed policy at the end of the day. Haley, any other takeaways that I really miss there?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

No, I think you nailed it. It's yeah, right, spot on. I think the only other thing is I'll just reiterate this one more time. Always refer policy-specific questions back to the insurance company in that sound.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess I should have also in my takeaways like have everything in writing legally. You want to have everything in writing that they either accept or deny or whatever it is. And I will say, even Haley, honestly, you said you kind of do it in the beginning, right? They say no and you send them a policy anyway, and then you kind of drop it. I will tell you, I've got a little spiel that I give at my pre-departure and just being like, hey, just one more time, I want to check. Like, you know, you don't have insurance on this trip, right? And you know your medical insurance in the US is not gonna cover you. I just want to make sure you understand that. And they're like, oh, yeah, we know. Okay, great. That's all I mean. But a lot of times that opens a door to a conversation that they thought was shut. And I even have a little, a little like uh we use access as our itinerary builder, and I even have like a little blurb in there that says traveling without insurance. And it basically explains to them this is all on you. Good luck. It scares the client. Yeah, it scares the client when they read it.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

They're like, okay, I think I need insurance, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:54

I think I do at the end of the day. What am I thinking? Oh, and I I wanna I wanna make sure that everybody understands that little comment about medical coverage in the US not covering you abroad. That is not 100% of the time. I have so found very few in my time, but a few, especially military coverage. Military coverage will often cover you in other countries. Um, but it, you know, regular blue cross, blue shield, or whoever, like those typically are the ones that you'll find that don't cover you in other areas. And you will even find some of the credit card insurance doesn't cover certain countries. Uh, I had a client just the other day. Their credit, he's like, Oh, I've got rental car insurance through my credit card. I was like, give them a call. And they did not cover uh Ireland was a country. I they're like, there's a handful of countries we don't cover. It was Ireland and Italy and a few others. And I was just like, ah, so glad I said something because now I was able to sell that additional kind of markup at the end of the day. So make sure to just push back. It's simple, you're not being pushy with it or salesy. Come across as genuinely caring at the end of the day because you are, and they'll understand at least if something does go wrong, they'll be like, well, bird really tried. Yeah. That's all you can do. Um, any final thoughts about insurance or best practices here?

SPEAKER_01 32:13

No, no, I think we covered a good bit.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Awesome. Well, you guys, we are so excited to see y'all uh in a couple months. Hopefully, we will all be together November 6th for our in-person event that we're having in Charlotte, North Carolina. Um, we will be dropping that link very, very soon, and we cannot wait to see all of our listeners as we do some live podcast episodes there. All right, until next week, we hope you have a great one.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Well, that's a wrap for this week's episode of the Travel Agent Guide Podcast. If you got value from today's conversation, do me a favor, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another travel advisor. Your support helps us reach more advisors and continue growing this amazing community. Don't forget to join our Facebook group, the Travel Agent Guide. And until next Wednesday, keep taking action, keep growing, and keep chasing those big goals. See you in the next episode.