By Randall Gordon-Duff, Head of Product, Corporate Travel, Collinson Group
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UK businesses are spreading their wings wider than ever before as they are increasingly looking overseas for new business opportunities.
Official data shows that total spend by UK business travellers in 2015 was up 30% to £5.82 billion, with the number of individual visits up 7% year-on-year and the total number of nights spent on business travel up 17%. A recent report from the Confederation of British Industry revealed that 30% of UK exporting firms believe their output will increase, with the drop in the value of the pound post-Brexit, opening up a host of overseas opportunities for UK companies.
However, the world doesn't always provide a safe, stable stage on which global business transactions can be conducted. Staff could potentially face a number of issues while on their travels — anything from the low frequency high impact risk of terror attacks, kidnap or natural disasters, to the more common lower risk complication of illness, petty crime or travel disruption.
So, how are UK companies and insurers dealing with these threats to travelling staff?
Mitigating against risks
Many are increasingly working with assistance providers to ensure their policies offer an all-encompassing Duty of Care product that is able to provide a complete care and information package in the face of a severe disaster whereby exclusions and excesses are kept to a minimum. Companies are recognising that, given the fast-changing risk environment, off the shelf insurance cover is often not enough to ensure their number one asset — their staff — are adequately protected, both fiscally and from an assistance perspective, in the event of a crisis.
A specific area that augments cover is the provision of information portals, tracking and risk alerts — whether this is through smartphone apps or online tools — to ensure foreseeable travel risk can be mitigated up front but also enables assistance to be delivered quickly and efficiently to those caught up in a specific event as traveller exposure can be actively monitored.
The military coup in Turkey last summer provides a clear example of the need for accurate, up-to-date information. Business travellers in the region would have no doubt wanted access to clear guidance, rapid responses and effective solutions that might include evacuation and repatriation that hitherto may not have been provided under exclusions related to a political or military event.
In addition to giving employees the ability to receive timely information, we are also seeing more companies setting up processes for their staff to report information themselves within peer networks, from travel delays to more serious business continuity or disruption issues.
In summary
While there are growth opportunities for many business sectors ambitious enough to move into a global market, there are also a lot of potential risks confronting their travelling employees.
The days of simply buying a general business travel accident policy without overlaying company travel patterns and exposure within a corporate travel framework are now long gone. Companies are increasingly taking a proactive stance by building specific travel risk guidance and procedures around their insurance cover and are actively looking to protect their staff against these risks by ensuring more is done in both the breadth of insurance cover and the provision of proactive rather than reactive assistance.