From 9/11 to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jenny Edwards has spent 30 years helping Aussies through travel disasters.
Head of underwriting product at Cover-More Travel Insurance, Edwards is responsible for shaping the policies that Australians use every day.
This year marks her 30th year with the company, a career milestone that also coincides with Cover-More’s 40th anniversary.
What began as a role answering emergency assistance calls in 1996 has evolved into a career spanning global crises, overseas deployments, claims, product development and customer care.
“Back then, travellers didn’t have mobile phones in their pockets or instant access to information,” she said.
Over three decades, Edwards has worked through some of the world’s biggest travel crises, including 9/11, the Bali bombings, the collapse of Ansett Airlines, volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Bali, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Every major event in the world will impact travellers somewhere,” she said. Her career has exposed her to some of the strangest and most confronting travel insurance cases imaginable.
“We’ve seen everything from monkey bites and people being mugged through to very serious illnesses and necrotising fasciitis, a rare flesh-eating disease,” she said.
“Just when you think you’ve heard it all, there’ll be a circumstance you could never dream up yourself. That’s part of why I love this job – we are here to help our travellers when they need us.”
“I think the world continues to present new risks and challenges. I think there’s more natural disasters and earthquakes, terrorist attacks and there’s a lot of geopolitical conflicts.
“We have to grow and adapt to those and offer travel insurance that evolves so that we can deliver more care and protection for our travellers.”
On the ground assistance
A defining moment of her career was a 2006 tour bus crash involving Australian travellers some 46 kilometres outside of Cairo, Egypt. The accident resulted in six fatalities, and left 27 travellers injured.
Working in Cover-More’s UK office at the time, Edwards was the closest agent to the scene. She flew out immediately to provide on-the-ground support.
“I spent four or five days there, visiting people at their bedside, making sure that we were relaying all the information back to Sydney to work out how we were going to get people home,” she said, reassuring the travellers that the policy was responding, taking care of practical day-to-day needs.
“Down to little things like going to the market to buy they a toothbrush and toothpaste, helping pay funeral directors, just being the liaison between them and our doctors back in Australia and our assistance team. It was really fulfilling to see the teamwork that went into it and how it impacted the customers in real time.”
For Edwards, the experience highlighted the role travel insurance can play during a crisis. “We really do care about people,” she said.
Talking travel insurance
Edwards says the key for advisors is to have the conversation around insurance early in the trip planning process.
“Bring up travel insurance early. Don’t be afraid of it, it’s an important thing for a customer to have. And ask questions – our BDMs, our trainers, our sales support team are available and we’re here to help answer those questions.”
“They’re [advisors are] the experts in travel, and we’re experts in travel insurance, and we’re here to help them.”
“People think an insurance product is all fine print, written by lawyers but it really is designed for the customer. It’s not designed to have gotcha clauses, everything is there in black and white.
“It does what it says, it’s a promise,” she said.
