PassportCard emerged as the outlier in the way Australian travel insurers responded to customers stranded by the Middle East conflict, funding full scale evacuations from an active war zone despite standard policy exclusions for war and conflict.
While most insurers concentrated on ramping up assistance and extending policy dates, PassportCard chose to absorb substantial evacuation costs as an ex gratia measure, effectively acting first and worrying about the fine print later.
Across the industry, travel insurers stood up extra resources to support customers caught up in the crisis. The Insurance Council of Australia said companies offered 24 hour assistance, helped coordinate medical care and prioritised those in affected countries, while urging policyholders to get in touch if they needed help.
Travellers in transit or with upcoming plans were encouraged to speak to their insurer if they had suffered a loss, with each claim assessed on its merits and some policies extended for those delayed by airport or airspace closures.
The ICA also declared the conflict a Significant Event, set up an industry taskforce and began working with government to monitor claims and coordinate support.
Australians in the conflict zone were reminded to follow Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advice and to monitor Smartraveller for updates, while staying in touch with airlines, travel agents and their insurer.
What PassCard Did Differently
Within that broader framework, PassportCard took a decisively more interventionist path. The insurer confirmed it had about 200 customers in the region when hostilities escalated and proactively contacted all of them to offer a way out.
It organised complex repatriation routes, moving customers by coach from Israel to Jordan before flying them to Athens, and bussing others from Dubai to Muscat before repatriating them to Melbourne via Delhi.
All costs up to their safe departure back to Australia were borne by PassportCard, including security escorts and on the ground logistics, even though war was generally not covered under its policies.
Chief executive Peter Klemt characterised the spend as an ex gratia payment and framed the operation as “the right thing to do”, aligning it with the company’s long standing focus on in crisis assistance rather than a narrow reading of the policy wording.
By contrast, most other insurers stopped short of funding evacuations where the loss flowed directly from the conflict. They helped customers navigate airline rebookings, refunds and schedule changes, offered round the clock assistance and extended cover, but continued to rely on war and conflict exclusions that sat in line with global norms.
PassportCard’s decision to cross that line and physically move about 200 customers out of the conflict zone created a clear point of difference in both customer experience and brand reputation.
The company still drew its own boundary by confirming it would not fund returns for customers outside the direct conflict area who were affected only by wider schedule disruptions, instead helping them work with airlines that were offering rebooking options and fee waivers.
The Middle East crisis also threw a spotlight on how these war exclusions were communicated. With political leaders urging insurers to do the right thing by Australians caught overseas, the distinction between what a policy technically covered and what an insurer chose to do in practice became highly visible.
In that context, PassportCard’s evacuation program functioned as a live case study in treating evacuations as a brand and trust investment rather than a purely contractual obligation.
For brokers and travellers alike, it left a pointed question hanging beyond this conflict: when geopolitics suddenly stranded Australians far from home, which insurers simply adhered to the wording, and which stepped beyond it to get their customers out?
