When it comes to selling Manulife Travel Insurance, the company wants to give travel agents every advantage. That includes a robust e-learning platform. After all, travel agents “are the ambassadors for our products”, says Jennifer Waver, Director, Account Management, Manulife Financial.

1. What makes Manulife Travel Insurance different from its competitors?

Waver: It’s truly our amazing people. We have over 40 travel insurance professionals that manage and train our travel agency partners across Canada. The methods we use to focus on the importance of travel insurance make us very unique.

In addition to training one-on-one, groups of agents, scheduled live and pre-recorded webinars, Manulife in conjunction with SmarterU has created the Manuversity e-learning platform.

Manuversity is the perfect marriage of superb course modules, combined with an intuitive training tracking system. Each course module is expertly designed, and includes information slides, professional narration, interactive learning games and graded quizzes. Specific modules have been added to the learning library with an affiliated allowance of continuing education credits.

Upon the successful completion of said modules, with a passing grade, the travel agent is automatically sent a certificate of successful completion with the C.E. Credit allowance printed on the certificate for that module, which may be summited with licensing renewals.

2. How often does Manulife changes its travel insurance policies?

Waver: We update our policies annually to ensure we are competitively priced, while still offering valuable benefits to the end customer. We would not be able to manage this without the support of our travel agency partners. The majority of all requested changes come from discussions with travel agency owners and consultants, as they are ambassadors for our products and hear the feedback from their clients.

3. How should a travel professional position travel insurance for best results?

Waver: Really understanding the policy is the first key step. After that, bringing up the topic of insurance as part of the client’s overall trip cost, highly recommending the coverage, having the tools to assist in overcoming client objections, are all tips that the best insurance sales people use daily to assist in closing a sale.

4. What’s the difference between policies sold through a travel professional, and one that is purchased at a bank or a kiosk?

Waver: When dealing with a travel agent, the client receives professional guidance on which products would best suit the clients’ needs whether they are travelling for leisure or business.

When purchasing using alternative methods such as a kiosk or from a bank teller, policy details cannot be discussed or questioned, therefore potentially putting the client at risk. There is nobody better to offer travel insurance than our travel agency network.

5. Last fall Manulife surveyed over 3,000 travel industry professionals across the county. Can you share some of the survey results with us?

Waver: More than 1,100 travel professionals gave us their feedback and we are pleased to report the results were very positive. Here are some highlights:

Nearly 95% of respondents rated Manulife travel insurance training sessions as being a good use of their time.

Over 96% said the Manulife Financial Sales Development Specialists who lead the training are well-prepared and knowledgeable.

As a result, over 90% said they were very comfortable selling Manulife travel insurance to their customers.

We take the results from these surveys very seriously. Feedback from our partners is so crucial, as it allows us to see how we are doing and will give us recommendations for any changes to our program or processes. As you can see, we are on the right track, but are definitely not sitting still!