Zurich offers enhanced Business Travel Accident insurance in COVID era
Zurich North America is introducing an enhanced Business Travel Accident Insurance solution that can help employers protect their employees in a world facing increasingly complex risks, underscored by a year of COVID-19, civil unrest and record-setting wildfires.
Zurich’s next-generation business travel accident solution offers customizable coverages that include emergency overseas medical care, medical and security evacuation and repatriation, and travel inconvenience. The solution’s 24/7 travel assistance service offers an app that includes destination intelligence, itinerary information, travel alerts and access to emergency services for covered employees.
The app also has a portal for employers that gives them a view of their traveling population and allows them to monitor potential risks as well as communicate with their travelers. Options on the app include a COVID-19 heat map.
Business travel plays a key role in a robust economy, and approximately 70% of Global Business Travel Association members in an August poll said they expected their companies to resume domestic business travel within two to six months. Just over 40% said they expected international travel to resume within six months.
“It won’t be business travel as usual,” said Marty Banaszek, Head of Group Accident for Zurich North America. “The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened employers’ duty of care for employees traveling on company business, particularly overseas. Our robust, global risk management solution can help bolster safety and confidence for employers and their business travelers.”
Zurich’s expanded international network and service capabilities for Business Travel Accident insurance and assistance, coupled with Zurich’s industry-leading proprietary international tools, help simplify the increasingly global protection needs of multinational corporations.
Zurich does business in more than 215 countries and territories. Employers can obtain a global Business Travel Accident insurance solution from Zurich, rather than purchasing stand-alone policies for different geographies. They can be confident that the coverages they choose will be aligned with local insurance and tax regulations as well as conditions in the regions where their employees will be traveling.
World Travel Protection, Zurich’s in-house travel assistance administrator, can push out location-based safety and security alerts via the app before or during a trip, looping in the employer. The app provides a familiar experience for employees wherever they are when they need medical, security or travel help, and the app and staff can provide navigational guidance in a crisis. World Travel Protection handles more than 200,000 assistance cases globally each year and offers 24/7 multilingual emergency assistance.
Even as health officials and communities gain better control of COVID-19, other business travel risks will remain, such as accidents, natural disasters, terrorism, other illnesses and a host of inconvenience risks, such as loss of luggage or other personal property. Zurich’s Business Travel Accident Solution is designed to help protect employees while fulfilling employers’ duty of care.
