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How an AI Agent Improved P J Hayman’s Conversions

Do you use an AI agent to assist you with your daily tasks? The choice is yours! At P J Hayman, we believe it’s nice to communicate with a human being. However, we also know there is a place for AI to help travellers purchase policies at ease and answer common questions at any time of day or night.

OpenDialog is an AI platform that helps highly regulated industries like financial services. It specialises in designing, deploying, and operating AI agents. Each of their AI agents has real-time, AI-powered conversations with customers throughout their customer journey. During every AI-powered conversation, reliable information is shared and tailored to meet a customer’s needs. Every interaction a customer has with an AI agent is recorded and is enhanced over time, ensuring continuous learning and optimisation.

OpenDialog’s aim is simple: to enable companies to design, deploy, and operate AI-powered conversations in insurance journeys, which are reliable, trusted, compliant, and commercially effective at scale.

While OpenDialog’s AI agents are designed for trust, P J Hayman’s aim is to help its Free Spirit customers buy travel insurance with confidence online, through their preferred digital channel.

So, how did OpenDialog help P J Hayman enhance its digital quote journey? Read on to find out…

The Challenge

P J Hayman is a specialist travel insurance provider whose Free Spirit policy is for travellers of any age with or without medical conditions. Therefore, a smooth and intuitive digital quote journey was needed for all its customers.

OpenDialog’s mission: To reduce friction, improve the online experience, and help travellers purchase specialist travel insurance via any channel of choice. While making customers feel informed, supported, and confident to finish their quote online.

While customers still value a human touch, if simpler quote and policy questions can be resolved via an AI agent in real-time, this intelligent online solution is invaluable in terms of helping customers to self-serve.

And as if by magic, OpenDialog’s AI agent appeared! P J Hayman Met Selma (our new digital assistant)…

After meeting OpenDialog at BIBA and interacting with the AI agents, P J Hayman was impressed with how Selma could inform and support their customers during the quote journey online, while ensuring the customer still had full control of their purchase. Also, as OpenDialog supports governance, accountability, and regularity rigour, P J Hayman had the confidence that Selma would be secure, transparent, and compliant.

In essence, Free Spirit customers could be supported effectively by Selma while meeting high expectations.

In January 2026, Selma was implemented into Free Spirit’s customer-facing quote and buy journey and began answering quote and policy questions in real time. Soon, customers began to understand Free Spirit Cover in more detail before purchasing. They were even supported when making changes to their quote through an API-led journey (or API-led connectivity) seamlessly. Helping them make informed decisions, such as whether to take out a single trip or an annual multi-trip policy.

How have P J Hayman’s customers benefited from using an AI agent?

Customers are supported with their quote and policy queries before they make a purchase
Saves the customer time
Selma quickly answers customers’ practical questions before they buy a policy, such as: When does a single-trip policy start? Or: What activities are included in a specific activity pack?
Selma can prompt the customer to consider their quote options, for example, upgrading from a single trip to an annual policy.

Overall, P J Hayman makes purchasing travel insurance easier for its customers by providing a more streamlined and user-friendly online buying experience.

Quotes from Free Spirit customers

Trustpilot Review for using Free Spirits AI Agent

Trustpilot Review about their online experience.

The Results

While using Selma, P J Hayman’s commercial impact can be measured, for instance:

There was a 24% relative increase in quote-to-buy sales conversions on the Free Spirit journey, after the first three months of implementation.
191 customer queries to Selma have reduced the need for customers to call up with simple questions, saving the customer time.
More customers have completed their journey through their chosen channel!
P J Hayman has seen an increase in the number of customers who initially started with a single-trip policy but, after interacting with Selma, have opted for an annual multi-trip policy, further helping to support better value for customers.

In the short term, guidance from Selma at the point of purchase helps Free Spirit customers choose a suitable travel insurance product, which meets their needs. In the long term, P J Hayman can continue to gain further insights into their customers’ wants and needs from reviewing the questions that customers ask. Also, they can pinpoint their customers’ pain points during the quote journey, helping them to consider other ways of improving the user experience.

Quotes from the P J Hayman team

A quote from P J Hayman’s Product and Marketing Manager:

“As the technical landscape is evolving so rapidly, working with OpenDialog has enabled us to tackle some of our key business challenges with a robust, practical, and reliable AI solution, putting customer needs at the forefront of this development.”

Jon Mainwaring, Head of Business Development:

“The insurance industry is full of conversations about AI’s future potential. We’ve focused on practical application, and our AI agent is already delivering real value through faster responses and improved customer support.”