Relax this summer with the right business trip cover

Written by Tim Weymouth, Associate Director. 

The holiday season is upon us, and I expect many are looking forward to a relaxing break away. When we book our holidays, we’re now frequently offered travel insurance at many stages of the process via the providers that we use. Even event and concert ticket outlets now offer insurance for when you’re unable to attend. Or we might be looking at purchasing an annual travel insurance policy or bolting it onto our bank or home insurance. But does the same amount of thought and research go into cover for business trips?  

Cover for business trips can often be left more to chance than you think. 

As you might expect for someone who works within insurance, I am not one for taking chances. However, it always amazes me how often corporate travel insurance is left to chance. When I have offered clients quotations in the past, some of the responses I have heard include: “It’s okay, I think our corporate credit card offers some protection.”

“We don’t travel outside of the UK frequently, so we ask employees to just buy it when they are travelling.”

Both of these responses leave things open to an awful lot of chance. How can you be certain that your corporate credit cards will respond, and what if you are travelling somewhere remote or undertaking manual work?

One scenario could be that your employees forget to purchase travel cover when they travel to New York for a conference. Whilst there, one of them has a heart attack and requires treatment and potentially medical repatriation back to the UK.

Possible consequences of this could be:

• Medical costs running into tens of thousands.
• The company has to pay, which would be a significant one-off cost. If it cannot afford the costs, liquidation could be the only option.
• If enough funds cannot be raised, then decision-makers who choose not to purchase a business travel policy could end up facing a management liability claim.

Another potential scenario could be if your employee is unable to travel due to their children or partner becoming unwell unexpectedly. This would mean lost travel and accommodation fees, an unwanted dilemma for the business (obviously not for the employee as family always comes first).

The above are of course extreme examples, but is it something you would want your business balance sheet exposed to? 

Assuming that your business travel is on a clerical basis and not to countries where the Foreign Office advise against all travel to, and you have had no previous claims, then we can have that risk transferred to an insurer within around ten minutes via an e-trade platform. What’s more, the premium will be well below the medical costs mentioned above. 

In fact, the policy responds to much more than just medical expenses. One common extension is hire car excess cover, which is often sold by rental companies at the collection desk and can be a significant cost per day. Having travel insurance in place might actually save you money if you hire a significant number of vehicles (UK hires can be included).

Additionally, we can include personal accident cover which can be of benefit to your employer’s liability cover as well. If you want to know about this point, please contact me and I will happily explain the methodology.

In short, whilst many of us are seeking out some summer sun, don’t leave your employees exposed to the risks business travel can present.