Interview: Cara Morton, CEO of Zurich Global Ventures

When Cara Morton first agreed to assist with an Interim CEO job helping to reshape World Travel Protection (WTP), part of Zurich, in 2018 as it was going through a period of change, she couldn’t have known what she would soon be taking on. Becoming CEO of Cover-More Group in early 2020 seemed like a natural movement. 

And then – Covid-19. The world stopped turning. Travel insurance providers and travel assistance companies were, overnight, brought to an almost complete standstill. However, we now know how the story turned out – and travel has not just recovered, but is an industry thriving and achieving incredible growth rates. And with this growth comes ambition and opportunities.

Zurich Global Ventures (ZGV) is a global platform business, delivering travel, cyber and life protection products, propositions and services, and more, to partners and customers around the world. Morton became its CEO at the beginning of 2024. And what do these partners want? Consistency, says Morton. ZGV is focused on the retail customer experience, driving resilience for those customers by integrating products and providing customers with value that they can really feel through services. Always a problem for travel insurance – there’s no value in it for customers until they really need it. But this is where Morton and ZGV are trying to change the conversation – travel insurance can be reactive and contextual, she says. “We need to put our feet in the travellers’ shoes.” 

To this end, she has been driving change in the company’s offerings. “One of my most valuable roles was actually the first one with WTP as Interim CEO,” she said. “This gave me the chance to understand firsthand what our customers experience, and the challenges they were facing with assistance and coverage. It gave me the opportunity to understand what needed to change.” Simplifying policy language and the tone of voice of the policies are two changes that have already seen a very positive effect in terms of customer satisfaction.

Embrace change, aim high

This ability to embrace change is one of the things Morton says she appreciates about working for a giant like Zurich. “The company has an ambitious nature,” she said. “We are looking to set the pace in the insurance world.” ZGV has a key role to play in achieving the Group’s plan to win in the market and stay ahead of the competition. One of the ways in which it is going to do that is through the acquisition late last year of Travel Guard, another travel business with a worldwide footprint. 

Integrating the two businesses is a complex task for sure, and it’s going to take time – maybe up to two years, according to Morton. There are a lot of customers to keep happy, both existing ones and new ones taken on when Travel Guard was bought. “The interesting thing about the acquisition, though, is the complementary nature of the two companies,” she said. “There isn’t duplication – each company’s skills and services add value to the other.”

And integrating these new skills and services into customer-focused products is going to be essential in the changing travel insurance environment. From an assistance perspective, customers are demanding more from their providers. More cover for mental health conditions. More information pre-departure on safety and security. “Travel insurance products need to evolve to something more holistic and digital,” believes Morton. “Travellers can use their insurance apps beyond the travel experience if we broaden the scope of the services we are providing.”

ZGV is focused on the retail customer experience, driving resilience for those customers by integrating products and providing customers with value that they can really feel through services