VRM Meets Travel Guard Challenge

Travel Guard recently announced that they would no longer permit the sale of travel insurance on an "Opt Out" basis to residents of the states of Minnesota and Washington (residents of those states must be presented their reservation with the option to ADD travel insurance, rather than having the insurance included in the reservation with the option to DECLINE it). This is as a result of various requirements instituted by the respective state insurance regulatory bodies.

Software systems like VRM are generally structured to treat travel insurance opt in/opt out settings as a global configuration, with no provision to control this on a regional/state basis.  Thus, in this scenario, Travel Guard clients having an "Opt Out" program would have been required to change to an "Opt In" program across the board, undoubtedly resulting in a significantly lower take-up rate.

VRM immediately recognized the potential for significant lost revenue for our clients selling Travel Guard, and decided to act proactively to adjust our on-line reservations engine to conform to the new requirements.  All of our Travel Guard clients now have functionality that diverts residents of the two states in question to an "Opt In" reservations path, while retaining the "Opt Out" functionality for residents of other places.

"Our principal concern is the profitability of our clients," says Virtual Resort Manager's CEO Pete Wenk.  "The potential for lost revenue in this situation was readily apparent, and we just felt that we had to do something about it quickly."   This new functionality can be adjusted to accommodate other states and other travel insurance vendors, should the need arise.

Virtual Resort Manager is the industry's finest browser based management system, providing complete services from back-end software to web sites, search engine marketing, research, and comprehensive marketing services.  The company serves clients from Maine to Hawaii from its home base in Beaufort, NC. For more information, contact sales@vrmgr.com, or call (252) 241-9533.