When travelling abroad on behalf of a business, it’s not only the employees safety this is important, but also the equipment and money of the company. Whilst most companies will offer their own insurance to employees, it is always worth taking out some of your own because the company insurance probably won’t cover non-work related incidents or loss. Plus, if you’re self employed you need to get it yourself anyway.
Business travel insurance comes in many different forms. Some offer it as a completely separate kind of policy and others will offer it as an added extra when purchasing single or multi trip insurance- like they do with the baggage cover and medical cover. It always pays to check with your employer what insurance you’re getting because some will offer very basic cover, whilst others will give you lots of extras to cover all events that could occur- every business is different and there’s no set policy for them to give you.
The main benefits of these policies are simple. All policies have cover for work equipment, though some will only insure up to a certain amount, rather than the actual value of the item- so you may end up getting less than the items value if it is lost or damaged, but it is still something. There will be extra cover for the work money you take, as well as any personal money you decide to take with you. There is also a specific kind of policy that only appears in business insurance, which is the replacement policy. If you have to attend a meeting abroad and end up ill or unable to attend, the insurance will cover another person flying out in your place. However, this doesn’t cover a simple case of the sniffles and it has to be a serious illness to the worker or a close relative for the cover to take effect- many policies will outline in detail what constitutes a serious illness.
There are extras, such as cover for the cost of hiring replacement equipment if yours is lost or damaged and cover for sending out replacement documents or samples that cannot be hired or collected abroad. Both of these cover loss, theft or damage usually, so check your policy. In some policies, you can have personal accident cover as well- and sometimes this can be double what you’d receive normally.
However, if you’re on a gap year or backpacking, you won’t get cover this extensive. Usually insurers will cover you for basic, ground level work that is low risk- such as fruit picking, which is often popular with travellers wanting to fund their trip- and will not cover manual labour, so if you’re a backpacker you will need to check your individual policy.