OREANDA-NEWS. September 09, 2013. In the first six months of 2013, IC Allianz has settled 8,532 insured events involving travellers going abroad and across Russia. The amount of payouts related to healthcare and medical transportation services provided to the insured customers totalled in over 80.3 million roubles.

Greece has been the leader as to both the number of insured events under settlement and the volume of payouts by IC Allianz (2,535 events and 20.68 million roubles). This fact is rooted in the growth of popularity of Greece as a holiday travel destination as well as IC Allianz’ expanded co-operation with tour operators that specialize on the country. The statistics of the first half-year has traditionally been impacted by the New Year time when Russians set off for vacations to ski resorts in Europe. Austria, France and Switzerland have therefore appeared on the top 10 ranking list.

"We have seen an abnormal outburst of insured events in relation to heart attacks and blood strokes in the first half-year, namely within the period between 23 May to 9 July 2013. Within these seven weeks, 28 travellers staying for holidays in a number of countries like Greece, Egypt, and Turkey died as a result of these accidents. The fact that many of the deceased have been under 40 years old is especially tragic. Our company’s statistics testify that the cardiovascular death rate does not normally exceed 50 cases per year," comments Svetlana Shvab, Director of Travel Loss Settlement Centre and Deputy Director of Personal and Property Insurance Contract Loss Settlement Centre at IC Allianz. "At the same time, no severe road accidents have occurred in the countries of mass tourism during 1H2013. To compare, several tens of tourists per season had been killed on that score in the years 2010 and 2011. Turkey used to be in the leading position in the number of car accidents as little as two years back, but the situation has now changed. The Turkish government toughened considerably the tourist bus transportation regulations. In addition, a proposal I brought forward in the framework of Intergovernmental Russian-Turkish Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation got a hearing: seventy kilometres of the Alanya-Antalya highway in the Alanya beach area were fenced and complemented with controlled overground and underground crossings in 2011. Along with other measures, this has mended the country’s road safety situation.

In overall figures, IC Allianz has provided insurance policies to cover 846.6 thousand travellers in 1H2013, with 45% of them going on vacation to Turkey. Other popular destinations have been Greece, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany.