It used to be that people who work in jobs that require them to travel a lot are considered lucky as they get to see and experience the world on company time.
Jobs that require regular travels were few and far between.
But these days, because of how connected global markets are, business travel has become something that no longer raises eyebrows of envy when one mentions it to a friend or family member.
After all, leisure travel has become very affordable in the modern age with cheap flights and cheap accommodation easily found and booked online.
If you are being sent for a business trip by your boss, then it is almost certain that the company would be buying coverage for your with business travel insurance.
And if you are a business owner and frequently send staff overseas for business purposes, then you need to purchase business travel insurance to protect both the employee and the company from financial losses.
It’s only the right thing to do for a responsible employer.
Business vs personal travel insurance
There’s really not much difference between insurance policies for business travel and personal travel.
Both types of policies very much contain the same types of benefits and features.
Even though there are unique features of the former, the biggest difference is actually the structure of coverage provided.
Personal travel coverage is usually purchased on a per person (or family) per trip basis. While business travel coverage is usually purchased as a group insurance that covers all employees for a given period of time.
Saying that, there are 3 obvious unique features of travel policies for business.
Staff replacement
Unless a company has sent an employee for a holiday getaway, there must be a task of some sort which the traveller has to complete.
It could be to deliver documents by hand, obtain the signature of a customer, present a product and negotiate a sale, etc.
Whatever the case, if the original staff that has been sent falls ill on the trip and is unable execute the trip objectives, then another staff might be sent to complete the task that was supposed to be done by the original staff.
In this situation, employee replacement costs would be covered by the policy.
Trip rearrangement
Related to staff replacement, when an employee has to return to the home country early and is unable to accomplish the job that is supposed to be done on the business trip, then another trip would have to be scheduled as the task cannot be left incomplete.
This replacement trip can be covered by business travel insurance.
You are not going to find this in personal trip insurance. Holiday rearrangement insurance benefits is a stuff of fantasy.
It must be noted however, that not all travel policy plans come with this benefit.
Business equipment
If you have ever went on a business trip, you’d have experienced for yourself that the things that you bring along for business travel and personal travel can be totally different.
For example, the laptop is probably an essential item when travelling for business. But it’s a burden better left at home when going on holiday.
Other business equipment that belongs to the company might include:
- DSLR cameras
- Projectors
- Tablets and other smart devices
- etc
Bearing in mind how costly these things can be, it’s better to have them protected with coverage just in case they get damaged or gets stolen with the luggage.
Bail bond facility
Another unique feature is bail bond facility.
This is not something that is unique to business travel insurance, but for travel insurance in general.
This benefit basically helps pay for bail money in the event that the insured gets arrested and ends up in jail in the foreign land for some reason.
This can be due to traffic offences since a traveler is not going to be accustomed to the driving culture of another country.
Choosing business travel insurance
As mentioned previously, most companies purchase corporate travel insurance for their workforce via group policies.
This is so that the price per head would be smaller with economies of scale.
So in selecting a plan to meet your business needs, you first need to determine how many employees need to be covered.
And if you are on a budget, identify the number of people who frequently go for essential travel due to business reasons.
It is possible to purchase coverage for only a few people.
And you can fully expect an insurance agent to advise you to buy for more people with a view of a growing headcount. Their job is all about the upsell.
But you can just purchase enough to cover your current requirements. You can always upgrade your plan in the future when your headcount increases.
It also goes without saying that the more people a group policy covers, the higher the costs.
If the trip is a basically a leisure trip for the staff, and there are basically no essential travel required in the company, then a one-off trip insurance policy would be sufficient.
While if frequent travel is part and parcel of the nature of business, then buying an annual plan that covers multi-trip can offer more value.
Countries that employees are being sent can also affect insurance premiums.
If budget is tight, just go with the basic plans.
They basically offer a peace of mind. Seldom will we ever get to claim for anything from travel policies.
They are there mostly to alleviate any major financial burden should something really bad happen to you or your employee while they are overseas doing business.
You don’t want the expenses of helping them affecting how much assistance they can get.
