shop talk | profile BRICE KING, VICE PRESIDENT OF TRAVEL, ROAMRIGHT Q&A: Born to roam
Brice King, vice president of travel for RoamRight, discusses the benefits of his company’s new mobile app and the commitment to making insurance straightforward for agents
n WHAT FIRST ATTRACTED YOU TO THE INDUSTRY? Travel has always appealed to me and my first international trip, to Chile, opened my eyes to the world. I realized I wanted to be involved in travel professionally as well as recreationally. Any job that required an understanding of geography, world news and travel began to appeal to me. My search for such a career led me to work in international travel assistance, where I saw the risks and challenges travelers can experience when they leave home. From there, I moved into travel insurance, another industry focusing on aiding travelers. These experiences have solidified my passion for helping people while they’re traveling.
n WHAT ARE YOUR MAIN DUTIES WITH ROAMRIGHT? I’m responsible for the overall operations of RoamRight, from customer service to IT. An average day for me ranges from managing improvements to the RoamRight partner portal and RoamRight mobile app to ensuring our callers are satisfied with their customer service experience. RoamRight is committed to offering the best tools and service for our travelers. This commitment is evident every time you talk to one of our customer service or claims staff, purchase a policy from our portal, or use our mobile app.
n WHAT’S NEW FOR YOU AS AN ORGANIZATION? We’re excited to share with the travel industry our new mobile app, which better informs and protects travelers around the world. It’s free to download and anyone can access features like our medical phrase translations and international medication equivalents tool. Travelers who have a RoamRight travel insurance policy also have access to detailed destination and security information, including up-to-the-minute safety and security alerts pushed to their phone or mobile device. We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from travelers and agents. Many of them are excited to work with a travel insurance company that’s advancing technology in this industry. To tour the app, simply visit
roamright.com/app and click on ‘Take a tour’.
n HOW IMPORTANT ARE TRAVEL AGENTS TO YOU? Agents are critical to the travel insurance industry — we get that here at RoamRight. We also understand travel insurance isn’t the most exciting part of travel planning, and it’s certainly not the reason people become travel
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agents! We work hard to make the travel insurance process as simple and rewarding for agents as possible. Many RoamRight travel agent clients who’ve previously sold products from other insurance providers are pleasantly surprised at our responsiveness and flexibility, as well as our online agent tools and our new mobile app.
n WHAT ARE YOUR MAJOR OBJECTIVES FOR 2014/15? Right now, we’re looking to grow our relationships in the travel agent community. For years, our parent company, Arch Insurance Group, served as the underwriter for some of the largest and most well-known travel insurance providers. When Arch decided to go straight to the consumer, RoamRight was created. Having all key functions under one roof makes us much more flexible. Our customer service, claims and underwriting teams all work closely together to make sure our clients have the travel insurance options they need — and the customer service they deserve — from a travel insurance partner.
n WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME? If the sun is shining, I try to get outside with my family for a hike, mountain bike ride, or a weekend camping trip on the Appalachian Trail. One of my other favorite pastimes is planning my next vacation. There’s nothing more fun than sitting down with a map and computer and creating the next big trip.
n WHERE DO YOU LIKE TO GO ON VACATION? If I’m traveling domestically, I like to camp in national parks in the West — Yosemite, Sequoia-Kings and Glacier national parks in particular. These trips are a mix of backpacking and RV trips, depending on the time of year. I try to get one long-distance back-packing trip in a year, most commonly on the John Muir Trail in California’s Sierra Nevada. Some of my favorite international destinations include the South Island of New Zealand, Patagonian Chile, Argentina and Namibia. The next big family outing is a return to Etosha National Park in Namibia for a self-guided safari.
Many RoamRight agent clients who’ve sold products from other insurance providers are pleasantly surprised at our responsiveness and flexibility, as well as our online tools and new mobile app
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