James Grace, CEO and president of InsureMyTrip.com, came up with the idea for the company while working for his father.
COMPANY PROFILE
InsureMyTrip.com
Owners: James Grace and Peter Evans
Type of business: Web-based travel insurance aggregator and agent
Location: 100 Commerce Drive, Warwick
Year founded: 2000
Employees: 24
Annual revenue: WND
Web-based insurance agency will cover anything from laptops to life
Four clocks hang on the walls of InsureMyTrip.com’s Warwick headquarters – one each to show the time in Rhode Island, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo.
Around the world, the company’s clients are always on the go. But what if a trip – business or personal – gets interrupted? Or worse, what if personal injury befalls a traveler?
That’s where InsureMyTrip.com makes the difference.
Founded in 2000, the Web-based insurance agency offers packages for travelers looking to protect their assets – from something as small as a laptop to a person’s life, said Peter Evans, a minority partner and executive vice president of the company.
The company’s main Web site aggregates information from 16 insurance companies, allowing consumers to compare different packages. The consumer can then select a plan from InsureMyTrip.com, which is an agent for the companies.
Through the several sites it manages, InsureMyTrip.com offers users a wide array of choices, both for groups and for individuals.
For business travelers, the company offers coverage for a policyholder’s electronics, such as a laptop or a personal digital assistant; there is also protection for a trip interrupted by the need to return to the home office.
The policies are geared toward smaller companies because larger ones generally have direct agreements with airlines and hotels, Evans said.
For vacationers, options include coverage for emergency medical evacuations, health care and trip cancellations. Policies that act similarly to life insurance plans are available for vacations as well, he said.
Through InsureMyGroup.com, Evans said, the firm has become among the first to market toward traveling groups. And InsureMyVisa.com offers travelers the option of getting health insurance to fulfill the requirements of their visa.
“The policies provide all of the necessary components for [the traveler] to protect their investment, their lives and the lives of their families,” Evans said.
The idea for the company was conceived in 1995, Evans said. James N. Grace, the firm’s president and CEO and primary stakeholder, was working for his father’s insurance company, J.N. Grace & Co.
Intrigued by the idea of offering services on the Internet, Grace developed the idea for InsureMyTrip.com, which was among the first Web sites of its type.
In 2000, Grace – who was traveling last week and was unavailable for an interview – incorporated InsureMyTrip.com and began operating the business in East Greenwich.
Evans joined Grace as his first employee, in 2001. That year also proved to be a watershed year for the company, largely because of the events of Sept. 11, Evans said.
Before the terrorist attacks, Evans said, only about 10 percent of travelers were purchasing travel insurance. Since then, the market has more than doubled, he said.
The growth in the industry has translated into growth for the company. InsureMyTrip.com presently has 24 employees with plans for more in the future, Evans said, and it has found a new physical home, at Airport Park, in Warwick. The company recently purchased a former warehouse for a planned call and tech support center.
The operation also has begun to expand beyond the United States. Through a new site, InsureMyTrip.ca, the company is now acting as an agent for two Canadian insurers, Evans said. The move made sense, he said, because while the population of Canada is smaller than the United States’, there is more need for travel insurance policies.
Because of socialized medicine, Canadians often get the insurance when they are traveling out of the country because they would not be insured, Evans said. He estimates that nearly 80 percent of Canadian travelers obtain some type of health policy when out of the country.
Additionally, he said, the Canadian travel insurance market “doesn’t have a lot of players in it, so we can get our arms around it.”
So, now that the company has begun to tackle the international market, does InsureMyTrip.com have plans to add more clocks to its walls?
“As we grow, possibly,” Evans joked.
