Barclays offers new and improved travel insurance

Barclays is today launching a new and bespoke travel insurance product to customers following its new three-year deal with FirstAssist.

Barclays and FirstAssist are committed to driving product and proposition development to provide and build exceptional products and propositions for Barclays’ customers. The new partnership will offer a wide choice of travel insurance cover and great value for money.

By working closely with FirstAssist, Barclays will enhance its travel insurance offering to its customers from 29 November 2010. The new product will have a number of benefits, including:

* A new and innovative ‘Quick Quote’ system, allowing Barclays to present the cost of the cover very early in conversations.
* The option for customers to include pre-existing medical conditions, subject to an additional premium.
* The offer of optional extra cover for winter sports, weddings, golf trips and business trips abroad.
* The offer of Independent Travel Cover for those customers who have booked their trip/holiday through any method other than a travel agent. This will provide cover for a range of events such as airline strikes or volcanic ash clouds.

The new FirstAssist products offer improved age eligibility terms, providing cover up to seventy-four on annual policies and seventy-nine on single-trip policies. They cater for a broad customer base with a variety of needs.

Welcoming the new travel insurance product, Rob Clarkson General Insurance and External Relationships Director at Barclays said: “We are delighted to be enhancing our customer offering in the travel insurance market. Our product will be highly price competitive and will appeal to a broad customer base.

“Our standalone travel insurance product has a number of additional benefits designed to profit our customers. This year the travel industry has faced massive issues with particular reference to the volcanic ash cloud and so it is essential that Barclays customers have adequate insurance cover. Our new product reflects our commitment to providing our customers with what they want and need.”

Customers will be able to choose from Annual Multi-Trip, Single Trip or extended Trip policies and will have the flexibility to tailor the cover to meet their travel needs. Three levels of cover are offered: ‘Travel’, ‘Travel Plus’ and ‘Travel Essentials’.

Aviva will continue to be the insurance provider for the travel insurance that is inclusive in some of the current accounts offered by Barclays.

For more information on Barclays travel insurance go to www.barclays.co.uk/insurance/travelinsurance , call 0800 015 4751 or visit one of our Barclays branches.
Notes to Editors:

About FirstAssist

FirstAssist Insurance Services (FISL) is one of the UK’s leading providers of tailored, flexible white-label specialist insurance solutions. FISL has five key areas of insurance expertise: travel, protection, budget health, legal protection and small business, covering over two million people in the UK. Driven as a specialist business by an entrepreneurial, commercial management team, FISL provides a unique range of products and marketing solutions for: Banks, Insurers, Affinity Organisations, Corporates, Intermediaries and SMEs.

Barclays is a major global financial services provider engaged in retail banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking and wealth management with an extensive international presence in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. With over 300 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in over 50 countries and employs nearly 147,000 people. Barclays moves, lends, invests and protects money for 48 million customers and clients worldwide.

For further information about Barclays, please visit our website www.barclays.com.