How to guard against global employee travel dangers

When you’re doing business around the globe, it’s important to consider the health and safety of your traveling employees. While health remains a foremost concern following the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic, business travel can present risks as unique and as numerous as the cultures, politics, and geographies of the world.

Business travelers at risk

Whether heading to a sales call or a week-long conference; or traveling to a developing nation or offshore drilling rig, today’s traveling employees face numerous dangers. Threats can come from a disease outbreak, a pickpocket, or a pipe bomb; from a riot that prevents access to transportation; or from a major hurricane that cuts off access to clean drinking water.

Here are some facts about evolving global travel risks and how to help prepare your employees:

Evolving global travel risks

Business travelers face myriad hazards, from minor inconveniences such as canceled flights to life-threatening natural disasters and diseases. Here are key travel risks to be aware of:

Illness and accidents — On any business trip, an employee might have a heart attack or get hurt in a car accident. And as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated, illness is a significant risk that knows no geographic boundaries. The potentially devastating consequences from any medical incident can be compounded by overwhelmed or inadequate local medical facilities.
Petty theft, travel scams, and cybercrime — Business travelers have long been targeted by local criminals. When in a strange land, jet-lagged, and using an unfamiliar language and currency, even the savviest traveler can fall victim.
In addition, with the rapid growth in the incidence and sophistication of international cybercrime, what was once the inconvenience of a stolen item can now lead to disastrous vulnerability. The security of an entire company’s network can be jeopardized when a laptop or device falls into the wrong hands.
Terrorism and civil unrest — Political and social unrest across the globe creates real danger for business travelers. Even if not physically affected by a violent act, traveling employees can experience travel disruptions and incur additional expenses related to a crisis. This evolving threat continues to spread, reaching some countries previously considered low risk.
Natural disasters — Major adverse weather events and natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, and other severe storms are occurring more frequently around the globe. These events can strike without enough warning to evacuate employees ahead of time.

How to guard against employee travel dangers

Follow the steps below to mitigate travel risks:

Prepare employees with critical pre-travel information — The more that’s understood about a destination, the greater the ability to properly plan and make informed decisions. Provide employees with information about local market practices and regulations, real-time health and security risks, and potential severe weather events.
Proactively stay in touch with employees and management — It’s essential for business travelers and those back in the office to stay in close contact with each other. Whether alerting employees to simple itinerary changes or keeping risk managers and HR in the loop during a dire foreign catastrophe, a communication plan is critical.
Provide emergency accessibility — When your employees are in trouble in a different culture and time zone, a quick and knowledgeable response is vital. Have resources in place to properly and immediately assess and address health crises, security issues, or other potentially dangerous situations.
Partner with a travel insurance company with global reach — If you’re doing business internationally, your travel insurance partner should be:
- An organization with a global footprint that can provide locally compliant, consistent travel insurance protection all over the world.
- An insurer that can customize travel insurance coverage for your specific protection needs and that offers Out-of-Country Medical benefits and other inconvenience benefits like trip interruption, trip delay, and lost baggage coverage.
- A collaborative partner with the expertise and resources to help minimize your employee travel liabilities.

Chubb combines the ability to write policies in more than 200 countries and territories with tools and services that help you mitigate travel risks and respond to incidents, including:

Worldview — An award-winning client portal that includes access to Chubb’s Multinational Research Tool and enables clients to manage their insurance program from one place.
Chubb’s online travel assistance portal — This tool provides up-to-the-minute local information and alerts.
24/7 emergency assistance — This service includes access to a network of resources around the globe.

Chubb’s travel insurance solutions can even enable your business to extend coverage when employees travel with family members or combine leisure with business travel. Ask your broker and agent about multinational strategies that combine Business Travel Accident and other coverages, such as Employer’s Responsibility coverage.

* From Chubb 2021 survey “Time to Fly: The Impact of Covid–19 on the Present and Future of Business Travel”