HBX’s Alexander Stutely on travel insurance products in today’s world

While travel insurance has grown more important over the past several years, most people still have no idea how it works, let alone what options are currently available for both business and leisure travellers.

At the recently concluded MarketHub 2025 forum held by the HBX Group in Macau, its insurance strategy director Alexander Stutely cast this vital sector into the spotlight.

Travel Daily Media’s Gary Marshall had the opportunity to sit down with Stutely to gain additional insights regarding the matter.

Travel Daily Media (TDM)    Alex, you’re in charge of the strategic direction of HBX Group’s travel insurance section; how does that interface with the customer side of the business, and what type of customers do you actually look for?

Alexander Stutely (AS)     There are actually several types of insurance products that we’re launching and offering, products that are designed to be B2B2C, meaning that we offer them to our clients. 

Currently, HBX Group works with approximately 60,000 tour operators, travel agents, OTAs, and so on. 

We can offer these insurance products to them which they can eventually distribute to travellers who are the end-consumers.

Travellers can purchase those products to protect themselves when they’re traveling.

We also have some products that are designed to be B2B, so we offer them to the clients to enable them to protect their own businesses.

These could be anything from cyber protection, liability insurance, and so on. 

So, to make a long story short, there are two types of products: B2B and B2B2C.

TDM     So, if I’m a tour operator or even a high street travel agent or a travel management company, I can connect with you and then the underwriters for the business.

Also, how many underwriters do you have across the business itself?

AS     To be clear, HBX Group is not directly the insurer.

We have partnerships with underwriting capacity insurance providers operating in a number of different markets. 

Thus, insurance is regulated based on the home country of the traveller. 

We have underwriters through our partners that are in the United States, Canada, the European Union, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and so on.

These are able to create products that are suitable for end-travellers who are from those source markets, as well as for our clients who are also located there.

On top of that, we also have a global product through one of our partners, Battleface, which can be offered to residents of over 180 countries worldwide as well. 

A working timeframe

TDM     What is the implementation time period from when a travel agent and yourself speak to the time they can technically be up and running?

AS     It depends on how our client wants to integrate the insurance: if they want to have a very light touch model where effectively they are just redirecting their customers to a third-party site to be able to purchase the product, it can be done extremely quickly.

However, if it is going to be embedded into their booking journey, it takes longer. 

The timeline is really driven by the resources, the tech capability, and the product roadmap of the client. 

There are some cases where we have a client who is already keen to be up and running very quickly.

We can integrate in a matter of weeks and they can start selling very quickly. 

For others, maybe their product roadmap is saying that they have a space for this four months from now, six months from now. 

Of course, we then just work to their timeline as well.

TDM     Can you give me some examples of some customers that have taken on maybe a white-label experience and have actually benched the front cover, so to speak, with their own branding? 

AS     Because insurance is a regulated service and product in most countries, if the partner doesn’t want to go through a complicated process to sign up and be authorised to distribute the products, they can go for a sort of co-branding approach where the insurer’s name is there alongside their own name so that the end customer still understands that there is this insurer behind the scenes that’s providing the product.

That co-branded version can be up and running in between a few days or a couple of weeks. 

We’ve done this with a few partners in the US and Europe primarily. 

But again, for example, with this global product, it could be done anywhere in the world; I think it’s certainly a great product to bolt onto any B2B business. 

About Alexander Stutely

Alexander Stutely joined the HBX Group in 2023 as its insurance strategy director, and it’s a position he holds to this day.

Prior to this, he served as head of business development and partnerships in the United Kingdom for global insurance provider battleface.

At present, he is based in London.