Duty of care is in the spotlight to protect business travellers on local business trips. Discover the risks associated with local travel and learn how to upgrade your travel policy to protect them.
Travelling in Africa can have hidden risks that your travellers don’t always have as top of mind. As a travel booker or business owner, it is your duty to ensure that these travellers don’t experience traveller friction when travelling for business, and that if they do encounter these, that their travel insurance covers them for any issues that arise.
Let’s take a scenario… Your traveller flies from South Africa to Tanzania for business. Before leaving the country, he forgets to check his travel insurance to see what he was covered for. When he contracted malaria in Tanzania, he ended up having to be admitted to a small clinic not an approved hospital. He also had to cover the costs of his medical treatment, as well as his transport to –and-from the clinic before flying home. Due to his malaria, your traveller missed all of the presentations that he had set up for the time that he was in Tanzania and the cost implication to your company is significant to fly any replacement personnel and assist.
That’s why you have an expert on board!
When you take out TIC insurance with Corporate Traveller you can rest assured your employees will be covered for majority of the issues that arise while travelling. If you had booked travel insurance with your expert, your traveller would have been covered while he was travelling. TIC would have arranged his transport to a hospital that had been previously approved by them, ensuring that he received the best care and treatment available at his destination. They would have also covered the cost for a replacement personnel to come and lead the presentations with potential clients, ensuring that it’s business as usual for the company. Having TIC coverage would also mean that your traveller’s medical bills would be covered and he could make his way home, healthy and happy!
Duty of care for the company and travel booker is very important in any company. What exactly is duty of care?
- Ensuring that traveller safety and elimination of risks is first priority
- It is a company’s legal obligation to act towards their employees
- Ensure traveller safety as far as possible
Travellers could face the following risks while travelling, that aren’t always accounted for or top of mind when booking travel:
- Health risks (Malaria, food poisoning, flu and many more)
- Cancelled/Missed Flights and Missing luggage
- Injuries like car accidents
- Political unrest in a country
You can manage your duty of care by applying the following practices in your company. Understand the risks associated with travel, provide adequate travel insurance, develop corporate travel policies, educate and communicate to your employees about the risks involved with travel and track your travellers and know where they are at all times.
For more information on how you can implement your duty of care process as well as info on the comprehensive TIC offering, contact us today.
