Three new markets, one new product
Three new markets, a new product, and a team that actually got in the same room. Here is what July looked like at Blink.
Southern Cross Travel Insurance goes live in New Zealand and Australia
SCTI, one of Australasia’s leading travel insurers, is now offering TravelCare: Delay Assist to customers across both markets, powered by Blink Parametric. It is our first deployment in New Zealand and Australia, and the first in the region to offer automated, real-time flight disruption support of this kind.
Customers with SCTI’s International Comprehensive Single Trip policies can register their flight in advance. If a delay of two hours or more is detected within 24 hours of departure, they are automatically contacted and offered digital vouchers (Uber, TripGift or Woolworths) with no claim needed.
The numbers behind the launch make the case plainly. SCTI has paid out more than 61,000 delay claims over the past three years, with a 24% increase over that period.
“We are always looking for ways to improve experiences for our customers, especially in the moments that matter most. Travel disruption can be stressful and frustrating, so giving our customers immediate support when delays happen is a really important step forward.”
Carole Tokody, CEO, Southern Cross Travel Insurance
Introducing Blink Express
We have built a new off-the-shelf flight delay product for the UK market and it is ready to deploy today. Blink Express is designed for partners who want to offer a parametric flight delay benefit without a full integration project. No months of technical work. No complex onboarding. A license key, a two-hour delay trigger, and a £25 digital voucher delivered instantly to the traveller.
Sid Mouncey and Chris Lee sat down to walk through what it is, who it is for, and why we built it. Watch the conversation on LinkedIn.
HeyMondo expands to France, our third market together
HeyMondo’s parametric flight disruption benefit is now available to French travellers, following launches in Spain in 2024 and Italy earlier this year. France becomes our third new market this month and our first deployment in the French market. The product works as it does in Spain and Italy: a 2.5-hour delay trigger, with a choice of lounge access or a €50 cash payout, automatic and instant.
The HeyMondo partnership is a good example of how a parametric product, once it works in one market, can move quickly.
When you lose your phone abroad, you lose everything
Lose your phone on a trip and you have not just lost a device. You have lost your authenticator app, your 2FA, and access to your phone number, which locks you out of banking, WhatsApp, email, and pretty much everything else that runs your life.
Blink operates across both Travel and Cyber, and this is exactly where those worlds collide. Our in-house cyber expert Boluwarin Oladipo did a thought exercise on what it actually takes to build a personal recovery plan, so that if it happens to you, it is an inconvenience rather than a crisis.
The whole team, at Páirc Uí Chaoimh
No conference circuit in July. Instead, the team gathered at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork for our annual offsite, a full day that covered a lot of ground.
We were joined by Jen Jordan from Workvivo, who shared the story of how they scaled rapidly and were acquired by Zoom. It was a candid look at what that kind of growth actually requires, and exactly the kind of outside perspective that makes an offsite worth having. Thank you Jen.
The bulk of the day was working time, and three product areas got the most attention. Weather parametric is a growing part of what Blink does, and the pipeline there is now substantial enough to warrant serious internal focus. We also spent time on a new cyber SME offering, bringing parametric thinking to small business cyber protection, and on the continued development of our off-the-shelf travel products, of which Blink Express is the first.
The day finished watching England vs DR Congo in the World Cup. A good result helped.
Get the next update in your inboxSubscribe to receive Blink’s monthly newsletter directly.