Insure My Trip
If finding a travel insurance quote for your next vacation was as easy as getting car insurance quotes online, more people would buy travel insurance, right? InsureMyTrip.com, a travel insurance comparison website based in Warwick, is betting on it.
InsureMyTrip CEO Jim Grace, who pioneered travel insurance on the Internet in 1995, launched the website in June of 2000 as the first online travel insurance aggregator. The company started with just two employees, including Grace, and now employs nearly 40 technology, insurance and business professionals. InsureMyTrip.com is a subsidiary of IMT Services Corporation headquartered in Warwick. IMT holds additional offices and data centers in Connecticut and Oregon.
InsureMyTrip.com offers users a one-stop shop to buy travel insurance for their vacation or for business trips. Users are able to compare more than 100 travel insurance plans from 22 insurance companies with real-time quotes. "Consumers have a choice as to how they can compare and purchase important trip protection information," says Vikki Corliss, Public Relations Director for IMT Services. "Our user-friendly site quickly provides the best available rates, benefits and coverage options available from the top U.S. insurance providers."
Grace calls his website the "Orbitz of travel insurance." Designed and programmed in-house, the website enables users to analyze, compare and purchase travel insurance packages — from multi-coverage package polices to medical and cancellation policies. In addition to its first-class business and web-savvy teams, IMT Services also employs a "customer care team" available to offer personal customer assistance by phone, email and live online chats seven days a week.
Why would the "Orbitz of travel insurance" choose to locate in Rhode Island? "The state has a business ‘mindset’ that is open-minded, creative, energetic and progressive," Corliss says. "It is the ideal environment in which to launch a seedling business, to expand an adolescent, forward-thinking company, and support the established powerhouse."
IMT’s potential to become the "established powerhouse" from its current status as an "adolescent, forward-thinking company" is evident in the exponential growth the company has experienced over the past eight years. The company recently renovated their Warwick headquarters to create a better, larger and more efficient work environment for their employees. With this bigger and better environment for their larger workforce, IMT Services expanded their operations into Canada in 2006, serving nine provinces in the country. InsureMyTrip.ca allows Canadian customers to purchase travel insurance specific to the needs of Canadian travelers from Canada’s top travel insurers.
With two successful websites under its belt, IMT Services launched TripStuff.com, which offers travelers advice from airport parking to overseas cell phone service and travel currency, in August 2007, and InsureMyVisa.com, which aims to expedite the travel medical requirements imposed by foreign embassies and to simplify the overall compliance process, in 2004.
IMT Services revels in Rhode Island’s business depth and diversity. "When you consider the scope of products and services headquartered here, it is impossible not to think about the potential for developing resourceful and productive collaborations as well," Corliss says. "Rhode Island also offers tremendous quality of life which IMT recognizes as a unique and important recruitment tool."