Latest news with #WTP
The Star
2 days ago
- The Star
More people are buying premium insurance with global travel disruptions
With flight cancellations, delays and other disruptions on the rise, leisure travellers are being increasingly discerning over the level and type of insurance they buy. Businesses, too, are turning to specialist advisory services to limit risk. Since 2019, travel disruptions around the world have risen due to everything from Covid-19, extreme weather, volcanic eruptions, military conflict, jet safety issues, computer glitches and fires which have closed airports, grounded planes and stranded millions of passengers. In the United States, ongoing air traffic controller shortages and ageing technology have caused significant disruption. In May, equipment outages, runway construction and staffing shortages caused flight cancellations, diversions and delays at Newark Liberty, one of the main airports serving New York City. Recently, Israel attacked Iran, forcing carriers to cancel or divert thousands of flights to avoid conflict in the Middle East. Even with insurance, many policies specify a multitude of exemptions in the fine print. As a result, more travellers are taking out higher-end insurance policies, often at higher premiums, to better protect themselves, according to interviews with nine travel executives, insurance companies and analysts. 'We're in times that are quite unstable so people are cancelling more frequently than previously,' said Duncan Greenfield-Turk, CEO of Global Travel Moments, a luxury travel agency based in London, England. European tourists have increased their purchases of travel insurance for this summer by 3% compared with last year, according to German insurer Allianz Partners. Squaremouth, the largest travel insurance marketplace in the US, has seen a 34% year-over-year increase globally in purchases of 'Cancel For Any Reason' protection. British and US holidaymakers in particular are more willing to pay a higher premium to protect their trip, said Anna Kofoed, the CEO of Travel for Allianz Partners. About 32% more travellers globally requested an insurance quote from January to April compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from online travel insurance broker InsureMyTrip. Seeking travel advice There has also been a rise in demand for bespoke travel advice as US president Donald Trump has announced a number of immigration-related restrictions including tighter visa vetting procedures and travel bans. World Travel Protection (WTP), a global firm that advises businesses on travel risk, said it has seen a rise in US residents being detained at US borders and told their documents were no longer valid as visa rules were changing. WTP has worked with US government representatives to help those individuals return home, according to Frank Harrison, the company's regional security director for the Americas. 'We're seeing a very strong uptick in organisations coming to us wanting to know how to navigate the landscape of the US within the wider business,' Harrison said. CIBT, which provides non-legal visa and immigration guidance, has seen a 50% rise in inquiries since November 2024 from companies seeking to better prepare their employees for travel to the US, according to CEO Steven Diehl. High-end insurance One of the newest areas of business is in parametric insurance, which pays compensation automatically after a 'trigger' event such as a flight delay without the need to file a claim. Parametric insurance took off in some countries during the Covid-19 pandemic and in recent months more insurers around the world have begun to offer it. When testing the market last year, Spanish insurer Mapfre's Mawdy unit in Ireland said about 11% more customers opted for higher-tier travel insurance packages when instant compensation was included. Travel destinations have also spotted an opportunity in this burgeoning market. Marriott Bonvoy's villa rentals and waterparks, for example, offer parametric weather insurance at the point of booking, automatically paying out on rainy days. Sensible Weather, one of the providers of such coverage, reported its weather guarantees were added to 30% of theme park bookings and 10-15% of higher-value accommodation bookings when they were offered in 2024. In March, Squaremouth launched a new insurance product with cruise-specific benefits such as coverage for being confined on a cruise ship or missing the port of call. 'Everyone is trying to make it easier for people to understand that each trip ... is going to have a different set of concerns whether it's hurricanes or blizzards or what's going on with air traffic controllers,' said Suzanne Morrow, CEO of online insurance broker InsureMyTrip. – Reuters
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
The Enterprise SaaS Pricing Blind Spot: Why Willingness To Pay Is So Hard To Get Right
Vidhi Agrawal is the Director of Commercialization at Databricks . getty If there's one lever every SaaS company should pull harder, it's pricing. According to the Harvard Business Review , a 1% improvement in pricing can drive up to an 11% increase in profits. Yet nearly half of SaaS companies have never conducted a formal pricing study. Why? Because finding the answer to a deceptively simple question—'What will the customer pay?'—is much harder than it looks. Willingness to pay (WTP) is the maximum amount a customer is willing to spend on a product based on the value they perceive it provides. Sounds straightforward, right? You're willing to pay $10 for a slice of red velvet cake if it's as good as your friends tell you. If it's priced at $15, you might walk away. Pardon the pun, but your sweet spot for the piece of cake is pretty clear, and the stakes are pretty low. Though you might be a little sad, the success of your day will not be determined by that slice of red velvet. Now try that same exercise when the stakes are higher, when the decision could change the success, efficiency or profitability of your work. How much are you willing to pay for an enterprise SaaS platform with AI features, multi-cloud integration, compliance tooling and a six- to 12-month sales cycle? Suddenly, determining WTP becomes an exercise in ambiguity, negotiation and guesswork. Five Reasons WTP Is So Difficult In Enterprise SaaS After over a decade working in pricing and commercialization, I've seen five recurring friction points that make WTP especially elusive in B2B SaaS: 1. Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen In an enterprise deal, there are often many decision-makers, all with different motivations. Procurement wants to stay on budget. IT wants something scalable. Business users want it to be easy to use. This fragmented buying committee makes it hard to pin down a single perception of value. 2. Value Is Hard To Quantify Many SaaS platforms, especially those with AI or ML features, promise future value, but customers often struggle to assess what that means today. As one pricing strategist put it: 'Buyers don't know how to value what they can't yet measure.' Pricing strategist Emanuel Martonca said it best: WTP isn't a fixed figure: it shifts based on time, context and perception. A $200K product that seems too expensive today might suddenly feel like a bargain if new regulations make it mission-critical. 4. Customization Breaks The Model Products like Databricks or Snowflake scale dramatically, which can make per-unit pricing models unreliable. Every enterprise wants tailored deals, creating friction between price standardization and customer expectations. 5. Volatile Markets = Shifting Value Perception When OpenAI dropped prices on GPT-4o, for example, it forced entire pricing teams to reevaluate their value proposition overnight. WTP is never just about your product; it's also about what your competitors and the market are doing in real time. A Practical Playbook: How To Assess WTP When You're Not A Pricing Scientist While there are many academic methods for pricing studies, including conjoint analysis , Van Westendorp , Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM), most enterprise SaaS companies don't have the luxury of time or resources to deploy them regularly. In my experience, the most effective pricing teams use a practical, data-informed approach tailored to real-world constraints. Here's a five-part playbook: 1. Start With Your Own Data Dig into realized prices, not just list prices. Look across customer segments, regions and usage tiers. What are customers actually paying, and where are the discounts deepest? Internal data is the lowest-hanging fruit and often the most underutilized. 2. Track Competitors Like A Hawk Competitor pricing changes are often the fastest way to reset customer expectations. Set up alerts. Study their feature launches. Understand not just their list prices but their actual deal terms. I personally keep daily tabs on primary competitors and check in less frequently on the rest. 3. Run Focused Customer Interviews Don't default to broad surveys. Instead, run targeted interviews with decision-makers across procurement, IT and the users. Focus on uncovering what success looks like for them to understand what they're willing to invest to get there. 4. Use Beta Pricing To Simulate Value One method I've seen work well is offering a short-term, bounded-use contract. For example: $100K for three months, up to X units. This lets you test price elasticity in a real-world context and set benchmarks for future deals. 5. Leverage Third-Party Signals Platforms like Gartner, G2 and niche analyst firms sometimes provide insight into what target customers are willing to pay. These aren't always available or cheap, but when used correctly, they can be a powerful way to triangulate internal data with broader market benchmarks. Don't Forget The Seller's POV While product teams debate pricing frameworks, sellers live in the reality of live deals. They're the ones fielding procurement calls, countering pricing objections and negotiating contracts. That's why every pricing team needs a tight feedback loop with sales. Instead of asking 'What would you pay for our tool?' sellers can ask, 'What's your budget to solve this problem?' The difference is subtle—but powerful. It reframes pricing around outcomes, not just cost. As Martonca notes, the concept of a 'fair price' is often more important than the cheapest price. Customers want to feel like they're paying appropriately for the value they're receiving. Pricing teams can help sellers frame that narrative and sellers, in turn, can help teams refine what 'value' really means in the field. Meaningful Pricing At the end of the day, getting to the right price is about understanding the value your product delivers, the perceptions that shape customer decisions and the dynamic context in which those decisions are made. WTP isn't a static figure pulled from a spreadsheet. It's a moving target informed by data, shaped by psychology and conversation. As product managers and pricing leaders, our job is to build the systems, feedback loops and field intelligence that help take the guesswork out of the equation. Forbes Business Development Council is an invitation-only community for sales and biz dev executives. Do I qualify?
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Business Standard
16-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Premium insurance demand spikes as travel disruptions rise globally
With flight cancellations, delays and other disruptions on the rise, leisure travellers are being increasingly discerning over the level and type of insurance they buy and businesses are turning to specialist advisory services to limit risk. Since 2019, travel disruptions around the world have risen due to everything from COVID-19, extreme weather, volcanic eruptions, military conflict, jet safety issues, computer glitches and fires which have closed airports, grounded planes and stranded millions of passengers. In the U.S., ongoing air traffic controller shortages and aging technology have caused significant disruption. In May, equipment outages, runway construction and staffing shortages caused flight cancellations, diversions and delays at Newark Liberty, one of the main airports serving New York City. On Friday, Israel attacked Iran, forcing carriers to cancel or divert thousands of flights to avoid conflict in the Middle East. Even with insurance, many policies specify a multitude of exemptions in the fine print. As a result, more travellers are taking out higher-end insurance policies, often at higher premiums, to better protect themselves, according to interviews with nine travel executives, insurance companies and analysts. "We're in times that are quite unstable so people are cancelling more frequently than previously," said Duncan Greenfield-Turk, CEO of Global Travel Moments, a luxury travel agency based in London. European tourists have increased their purchases of travel insurance for this summer by 3% compared with last year, according to German insurer Allianz Partners. Squaremouth, the largest travel insurance marketplace in the U.S., has seen a 34% year-over-year increase globally in purchases of "Cancel For Any Reason" protection. British and U.S. holidaymakers in particular are more willing to pay a higher premium to protect their trip, said Anna Kofoed, the CEO of Travel for Allianz Partners. About 32% more travellers globally requested an insurance quote from January to April compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from online travel insurance broker InsureMyTrip. Businesses Seek Travel advice There has also been a rise in demand for bespoke travel advice as U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a number of immigration-related restrictions including tighter visa vetting procedures and travel bans. World Travel Protection (WTP), a global firm that advises businesses on travel risk, said it has seen a rise in U.S. residents being detained at U.S. borders and told their documents were no longer valid as visa rules were changing. WTP has worked with U.S. government representatives to help those individuals return home, according to Frank Harrison, the company's regional security director for the Americas. "We're seeing a very strong uptick in organizations coming to us wanting to know how to navigate the landscape of the U.S. within the wider business," Harrison said. CIBT, which provides non-legal visa and immigration guidance, has seen a 50% rise in inquiries since November from companies seeking to better prepare their employees for travel to the U.S., according to CEO Steven Diehl. High-end insurance products emerge One of the newest areas of business is in parametric insurance, which pays compensation automatically after a "trigger" event such as a flight delay without the need to file a claim. Parametric insurance took off in some countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and in recent months more insurers around the world have begun to offer it. When testing the market last year, Spanish insurer Mapfre's Mawdy unit in Ireland said about 11% more customers opted for higher-tier travel insurance packages when instant compensation was included. Travel destinations have also spotted an opportunity in this burgeoning market. Marriott Bonvoy's villa rentals and waterparks offer parametric weather insurance at the point of booking, automatically paying out on rainy days. Sensible Weather, one of the providers of such coverage, reported its weather guarantees were added to 30% of theme park bookings and 10â€'15% of higher-value accommodation bookings when they were offered in 2024. In March, Squaremouth launched a new insurance product with cruise-specific benefits such as coverage for being confined on a cruise ship or missing the port of call. "Everyone is trying to make it easier for people to understand that each trip (...) is going to have a different set of concerns whether it's hurricanes or blizzards or what's going on with air traffic controllers," Suzanne Morrow, CEO of online insurance broker InsureMyTrip told Reuters.
Daily Express
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Express
Seek explanation, student group told
Published on: Tuesday, June 10, 2025 Published on: Tue, Jun 10, 2025 By: Crystal E Hermenegildus Text Size: Mustapha, also Sepanggar MP, said the Telibong II Water Treatment Plant (WTP) has been completed. - Bernama pic Kota Kinabalu: Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Mustapha Sakmud, advised a student group which urged Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) to sue the State Water Department (JANS) to seek an explanation from the department. He said while it is the right of any party to file a lawsuit, such action must follow proper legal procedures. Advertisement 'The water supply issues at UMS were not deliberate. There are various technical factors that need to be considered,' he said during the 2024 Madani SPM Excellent Student Awards Ceremony for the Sepanggar parliamentary area, here, Monday. He was responding to the call from student group Suara Mahasiswa for legal action over the water supply disruptions at the UMS campus. Mustapha, also Sepanggar MP, said the Telibong II Water Treatment Plant (WTP) has been completed. 'However, pipe installation is still underway, causing delays. The real issue now lies with the unfinished Pan Borneo Highway. Because of that, the pipe installation couldn't be completed as scheduled. 'Efforts are being made to resolve the matter, but technical issues have caused setbacks. If students are still unsatisfied after receiving an explanation, they have the option to pursue legal action,' he said. * Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel and Telegram for breaking news alerts and key updates! * Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express's Telegram channel. Daily Express Malaysia
New Straits Times
29-05-2025
- Business
- New Straits Times
Pelubang water plant upgrading ahead of schedule
ALOR STAR: Upgrading work at the Pelubang Water Treatment Plant (WTP) may be completed ahead of schedule, said contractor Bina Darul Aman Bhd (BDB). Its group executive director, Raja Shahreen Raja Othman, said the RM431 million project was 62.5 per cent complete, slightly ahead of the targeted 62.3 per cent, and might be completed ahead of the extension period that was granted. "Once operational, the facility is expected to improve access to treated water for residents in Kubang Pasu and Kota Setar. "If we factor this into days, it should be an estimated 43 days (ahead of schedule)," he said during a press conference in conjunction with the company's 30th annual grand meeting today. Raja Shahreen stated that timely delivery remained a priority but noted that the project faced several non-construction challenges. "In terms of timing, like it or not, this is something we have to meet, but for us to continue progressing smoothly, we need cooperation from other stakeholders as well. "This isn't just about digging the ground. There are issues involving land acquisition, permits and existing infrastructure such as roads and private properties," he said. Raja Shahreen said BDB was confident of delivering the project on time. "We are committed. We have the financial strength and technical capabilities, but we must also take these external factors into account," he added. The Pelubang WTP upgrading project aims to almost double the plant's capacity, from the current 247 million litres daily to 457 million litres once completed. Last year, the media reported that state Public Works, Natural Resources, Water Supply, Water Resources and Environment Committee chairman Mohamad Yusuf @ Munir Zakaria said the Pelubang WTP had been granted an Extension of Time (EOT) until Dec 21, 2025, due to earlier technical issues. On whether BDB was open to rescuing other delayed water treatment plant projects in Kedah, Raja Shahreen said the company was ready to step in if needed. "We are prepared to assist with stalled projects. Financially, we are stable, and we possess the technical expertise to bring such projects back on track," he said. Meanwhile, Raja Shahreen said BDB recorded a pre-tax profit of RM4.51 million on revenue of RM294.7 million for 2024, compared to a RM14.47 million pre-tax profit from RM313.1 million revenue recorded in the previous year. "Despite the softer financial performance, the group remains optimistic about long-term growth prospects," he said.
