Markets in everything, part 648.
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Was cleaning up my inbox earlier today and this interesting promotional offer caught my eye:
Flybe’s website goes on:
This year we wanted to go one step further to give you extra peace of mind. We will give passengers who book flights, car hire and hotels direct* with Flybe in January 2009 free of charge travel cancellation cover in the event of redundancy prior to travel. Offer excludes the self employed and those who have had less than 2 years continuous employment and who do not qualify for statutory redundancy pay as per Statutory Redundancy legislation.
It seemed potentially interesting as yet another example of risk management tools being given to consumers. So I thought it would be interesting to look at the fine print…
Ignoring the irony that the policy backing up this offer is underwritten by AIG UK Limited…I was pretty disappointed (but not surprised) by what I found. Firstly, you are only paid if you cancel your trip. This is totally lame. If you lose your job, you’ll likely be more inclined to take the holiday/family visit/etc. you have booked. Further I’m not sure everyone will realize they only get reimbursed if they cancel, (even though to be fair to flybe they make it clear that it is cancellation coverage…)
On the other hand, I guess if it were true redundancy insurance, you might have a serious adverse selection problem (and AIG would charge more?) even though the terms state that “at the time of booking your trip, you had no reason to believe that you would be made redundant” (does that exclude then everyone who works for a bank? or for AIG UK?)
Anyhow while this particular offer is more gimmick than substance (as opposed to the iTravel Let it Snow promotion underwritten by Weatherbill for example), I think it is indicative of a growing trend to providing consumers with granular risk management tools.
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