Ticket Insurance

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New Cover Could Give Ticket Buyers Another Reason to Celebrate


RICHMOND, Va. February 01 (BestWire) — It launched just six months ago, but ticket insurance -– sold through a handful of online ticket vendors -– is a major hit, according to the product’s creator, World Access.

So far, Richmond, Va.-based World Access, a member of Mondial Assistance Group which is part of the Allianz family of companies, has insured more than $4 million worth of tickets, company spokeswoman Emily Porter said. “It’s very popular.”

The product provides buyers of tickets -– to events like concerts, sports matches and games, theatre and opera — full refunds of the purchase price if there’s an emergency that prevents them from attending the event. To be reimbursed, however, the emergency has to be a covered risk, such as sudden illness, losing a job, or having a loved one fall ill or injured.

Porter said there are lots of covered reasons, including if a ticket buyer had an accident on the way to the game or on the way to catch a flight to the game or if they were called to jury duty, or suffered vandalism or house fire. So far, “the most common claim is getting sick or injured right before the event."

Steve Weisz, the chief executive and founder of In Ticketing, an online ticket service best known for facilitating ticketing for popular international music events such as Rainbow Serpent Festival and Burning Man Festival, said his company began selling ticket insurance just weeks ago. When the product first launched, the original idea was for vendors to insure only purchases from their Web site, but Weisz is a licensed broker who also sells travel insurance, and is allowed to insure other tickets. “So you can go to one of our competitors, a major ticketing company, and buy Super Bowl tickets or Brittany Spears tickets, you can come to our insurance page and insure that purchase,” Weisz said.

Weisz said he’s getting a lot of inquiries about the coverage. “New clients are expressing interest in working with us, people that are doing ski trips or theater groups that are traveling and want to insure tickets for their 5,000 members,” he said.

The rate for ticket coverage is a minimum of $3 per ticket or 5% of the cost. So, a $100 ticket for example, would cost $5. Shipping fees, taxes and convenience fees are all covered and refundable, Weisz said.

World Access and its vendors expect ticket insurance to increase in popularity. Porter said the cover would also drive up sales of tickets in general as events become more expensive.

Sporting events, such as the upcoming Super Bowl in Miami, can run in the thousands of dollars, as do theater tickets, Broadway and opera tickets. Porter said the harder the tickets are to get, the more people would want to buy them further out in advance. And the further out an event is, the higher the risk that a buyer may have to cancel for some unforeseen reason. "So the cost of event and the desire to purchase it further out in advance will makes the ticket insurance more desirable,” she said.
(By David Dankwa, associate editor, BestWeek: David.Dankwa@ambest.com) BN-NJ-02-01-2007 1637 ET #