What is Business Travel Insurance?

Even with the technological advancement of tools like virtual meetings, business travel is more common than ever before and shows no signs of slowing down. With more employees traveling comes increased exposure for the companies they work for. Business travel insurance is designed for people who travel, primarily internationally, for business purposes. Whether for trade shows or to meet with a prospective client or supplier, travel mishaps not only interfere with the business being conducted but they can cost a company thousands of dollars. The good news is that most of today’s business credit cards provide adequate travel insurance as a card benefit for small businesses. However, for companies with employees who take more than five international trips per year to less established or industrialized nations, the benefits offered by credit cards might not be enough.

The insurance industry has responded to this growing risk by offering business trip insurance to cover incidents like lost luggage resulting in the need for replacement clothing to an employee being forced to end a trip early to return home due to an emergency. This type of commercial insurance can also cover situations where a traveling company representative or employee becomes ill and requires medical treatment. Certain policies can even provide kidnap and ransom insurance coverage as well as terrorism coverage. Therefore, when considering this type of protection, it’s important to identify the specific threats and scenarios your employees might encounter while traveling on behalf of the company.

flight Trip Cancellation Insurance

Trip cancellation insurance offers financial reimbursement to a company if that company is forced to cancel a business-related trip as a direct result of an unforeseen event. This policy minimizes financial risks by covering the costs of booked travel including airline tickets and hotel reservations. Usually, trip cancellation insurance covers a company and the business traveler against any or all of the following situations:

• When a traveler’s spouse or dependent becomes sick.
• The death of either a family member or co-traveler.
• Damage to the traveler’s home as a result of a natural disaster.
• A cessation in travel services due to travel provider strike or work stoppage.
• A terror attack at the planned destination.
• When the traveler is terminated, laid off, or quits prior to the trip.
• Severe inclement weather resulting in trip cancellation.
• If the traveler is summoned by a court to appear in person.

Some travel insurance plans may provide additional optional coverages with more flexible terms. These are commonly referred to as “covered for any reason” policies and allow a company to cancel a business trip for any reason at all. This type of coverage is almost always included by the company credit card so make sure you’re booking your business travel with it.

library_books Multi-Trip Insurance

In cases where a company regularly has employees take multiple or regular trips overseas throughout the year, purchasing one-off coverage is not the best available option and the protection provided by the credit card issuer might not be enough. This is where multi-trip insurance provides the best coverage at the greatest value by putting in place protection for an unlimited number of business trips to anywhere in the world within any given year. It’s great practice to buy this type of insurance policy if you know company employees will be traveling for more than five trips in a year. With a multi-trip policy, travelers and company administrators won’t have to worry about sorting out a new plan every time a last-minute trip is booked.

healing Travel Medical Insurance

Travel medical insurance, sometimes referred to as visitor insurance, is protection for those traveling internationally and providing coverage for emergency health care and emergency medical evacuation. This can be an important consideration if employees are traveling to countries with less than ideal medical infrastructures and are almost always purchased by companies who send their employees to emerging markets which are often located in third world countries. Some credit cards provide travel medical insurance and others don’t. Check with the bank that issued your company card to learn if your employees are already covered before purchasing a standalone version of this coverage.

If you operate a business that requires regular international travel by your employees, company representatives, or contractors, we strongly recommend that you consider adding business travel insurance to your portfolio of coverage if it’s not already provided through your business credit card. At Layr, we have access to a wide range of travel insurance policies from reputable global carriers for just about any budget. If you’re an existing customer, feel free to contact us to discuss adding this important line of coverage and if you’re not yet a customer, feel free to see everything you can accomplish with our platform by creating a free account and taking it for a spin.