By
Rebecca Gibson |
Fred Olsen Cruise Lines has stated that it could start asking agents for a bond, amongst other forms of financial security, if it cannot secure credit insurance to cover the risk of doing business with them.
The firm, which has said that it wants to protect itself against agency failure, has mirrored a move made by Complete Cruise Solutions (CCS) and the way it works with agents – the difference being that CCS doesn’t have credit insurance for its agents.
Fred Olsen’s director of sales and marketing, Nathan Philpot, said the company had secured credit insurance against 80 per cent of agents but the remainder posed a substantial risk.
“This has got to be a dialogue, not a one-size fits-all solution. We started conversations before Christmas, it would be great if we could have something in place by the end of January,” he said.
If an agent cannot get insurance from Fred Olsen provider, Euler Hermes, they will be given a range of options including putting up a bond, increasing the frequency of payments or getting agents’ customers to pay the line direct, as CCS is trying to do.