This piece was originally published in the International Travel and Health Insurance Journal
The travel insurance sector stands at a crossroads. The path taken today will determine who travels and how they experience the world in the future. Inertia could lead to a fragmented and exclusionary landscape where artificial intelligence (AI)-managed travel enclaves are reserved for a wealthy elite, while the majority face prohibitive costs or are confined to pre-vetted, unspontaneous journeys.
Conversely, a transformative path, driven by proactive, ethical, and collaborative intervention, can create a resilient and equitable travel future. This requires moving beyond promising but isolated pilots that struggle to achieve scale, towards a vision built on three foundational pillars: re-establishing trust through transparent data practices, embracing real-time technological innovation, and fostering systemic change through governance and collaboration.
Pillar 1: trust and data
Building and maintaining traveller trust in a volatile world is a fundamental strategic challenge. The future of travel insurance depends on creating a trusted, transparent, and empowering data ecosystem.
Building foundational data infrastructure
Innovations leveraging biometric, behavioural, and geospatial data raise new ethical concerns. A cross-industry priority must be the development of robust, transparent frameworks for data control and algorithmic accountability. Consent must move beyond simplistic opt-in models. Travellers need intuitive ways to understand and manage data permissions, especially as biometric and behavioural analytics become embedded in routine insurance decisions. For trust to be maintained, algorithmic decision-making must be explainable, auditable, and open to appeal.
Equally pressing is the need for interoperable, privacy-preserving infrastructure. Fragmentation across borders creates friction for travellers and insurers. The solution lies in portable credential systems and common data standards that enable seamless identity verification, risk assessment, and claims processing across jurisdictions. Strategic investment in foundational layers such as trust frameworks and legal guardrails is essential to scale innovation safely and inclusively.
Empowering travellers with data sovereignty
Central to a positive future is the concept of data sovereignty, where travellers control their own information. Tools like personal info wallets can empower individuals to grant and revoke consent to share their data, allowing them to negotiate dynamic, personalised insurance contracts in real time. In this model, AI transitions from a gatekeeper to an orchestrator, facilitating tailored policies, auto-settling claims, and optimising travel based on consented data.
This framework enables a future where a traveller uses their secure data wallet to grantan insurer temporary access to their itinerary, receiving a dynamically priced policy in seconds without filling out a single form. Co-created by all stakeholders, it ensures that while new forms of inequality may emerge (e.g. between those comfortable sharing data and those who are not), the system actively seeks to broaden access and build resilience.
Pillar 2: real-time innovation and technology
To remain relevant, insurers must shift from retrospective analysis to dynamic, predictive approaches that operate amid uncertainty. The ability to assess and respond to risk in real time is the new frontier of competitive differentiation.
Harnessing real-time data and AI
Current advancements, such as travel assistance apps with geo-tracking and the integration of telemedicine, show the industry is moving towards dynamic risk management. This fusion of real-time data is not just about logistics; it is about improving medical outcomes and fulfilling an insurer’s duty of care, especially in remote environments.
The next step is a move towards continuous, multimodal sensing, drawing from wearables, environmental monitors, and even drone footage to build holistic, contextualised risk profiles. AI-powered systems are already being used for faster claims processing and fraud detection, but their future potential is far greater.
Innovation must extend to edge environments, remote settings like mountain trails or cruise ships where travellers increasingly expect tailored coverage. This requires sensor networks that are accurate, low-power, and respectful of privacy. Sophisticated and explainable AI will be essential to process this data in real time, triggering emergency interventions, adjusting coverage dynamically, or automating claims. From predictive analytics for climate-exposed destinations to ‘guardian AI’ systems that balance safety with user agency, the imperative is to embed transparency into the architecture of intelligence.
Such a system could, for instance, detect a combination of a hiker’s high body temperature via a wearable and a sudden weather warning, automatically triggering an alert and suggesting a safer route – moving from reactive claim to proactive prevention.
Enabling seamless connectivity
Supporting this ecosystem is a need for robust, low-latency connectivity. Networks from 5G to satellite must enable seamless communication between edge devices, cloud platforms, and emergency services. Only with always-on infrastructure can insurers deliver on the promise of real-time, personalised protection in a globally mobile world. Technology is not just a tool for efficiency; it is the core enabler of an adaptive, responsive, and ultimately more resilient insurance model.
Pillar 3: governance and collaboration
No single organisation can address the future of travel insurance alone. The challenges are too complex and the risks too interconnected. Radical collaboration and forward-thinking governance are the only viable paths forward.
Designing inclusive and adaptive frameworks
Innovation will only succeed if it aligns with evolving regulatory expectations and diverse social realities. Dynamic policies that adjust coverage based on real-time data demand regulatory agility. Regulatory sandboxes must evolve beyond fintech prototypes to support real-world, cross-border testing of AI-driven decisions, dynamic deductibles, and parametric claims.
Global regulatory harmonisation is a practical necessity. Seamless travel corridors and international crisis response systems require mutual recognition of personal data wallets, alignment on privacy standards, and shared protocols for emergency coverage. Likewise, algorithmic governance frameworks must address liability when predictive systems make mistakes.
Critically, climate adaptation must be embedded in policy design. Innovation frameworks must enable pricing models that reflect carbon exposure, support managed retreat from uninsurable zones, and channel premiums into community resilience infrastructure. Without this, travel insurance risks becoming an obstacle to safe global mobility.
Finally, policy innovation must respond to growing generational and cultural diversity. As Asia emerges as a dominant tourism source, frameworks must evolve to accommodate non-Western travel patterns and different expectations around privacy and technology.
Establishing platforms for systemic innovation
Strategic collaboration is essential. This begins with creating joint innovation centres that offer shared data sets, simulation environments, and talent development. Hackathons and open challenges can accelerate innovation cycles while embedding ethics and inclusion into early-stage design. International consortiums are needed to coordinate global risk monitoring and technology standards.
Public-private innovation labs can serve as neutral ground for co-designing inclusive products and piloting crisis coordination protocols. Acknowledging and navigating the commercial realities of such collaboration – from navigating anti-trust laws to developing viable return on investment (ROI) models for pre-competitive research – will be critical to their success.
In all of this, consumer participation is essential to ensure that new models do not entrench stratification, where AI-driven premium products flourish while basic insurance becomes inaccessible. This requires coordinated investment and a commitment from industry associations to pool funding for pre-competitive research. Every collaborative effort must be grounded in equity, intentionally including marginalised communities and smaller market participants.
A prime example of such a platform would be a ‘global resilience consortium’ where public and private entities pool anonymised risk data to co-invest in the infrastructure that makes vulnerable destinations more insurable for all.
Shaping a new social contract for travel
The future of travel insurance will be shaped by evolving traveller desires, the escalating climate crisis, and the transformative potential of AI. The choices made today will determine whether the industry contributes to a future of fragmentation or one that champions resilience and accessibility.
Success hinges on a collective commitment to responsible innovation, a steadfast prioritisation of trust, the development of responsive products, and deep, cross-sector collaboration. By seizing these opportunities, the insurance and travel industries can co-create a future where travel remains a profound force for good: secure, accessible, and enriching for all. This calls for nothing less than a renewed social contract for travel, one that thoughtfully balances individual autonomy, collective equity, and the enduring human desire for global connection.
To begin building this future, industry leaders must take immediate, tangible steps:
- Initiate a cross-sector pilot programme to establish common standards for a secure, interoperable personal data wallet for travellers
- Fund a joint innovation challenge focused on developing explainable ‘guardian AI’ that balances traveller safety with autonomy
- Establish a public-private working group with regulators to design and sandbox adaptive, climate-contingent policies.
Industry Voice: Travel insurance in a volatile world
