In today’s global business climate, in which the pursuit of opportunity results in increased employee travel to some of the most dangerous regions of the world, agents and brokers have an opportunity to mitigate their clients’ risks by providing them with a comprehensive business-travel accident-insurance plan.
According to the Global Business Travel Association, business-travel spending in 2011 was up by 6.9 percent and is expected to see continued growth in 2012. While both domestic and international travel affords businesses substantial growth opportunity, it also means that companies face further exposure to costly risks and liability.
How to convince your clients
Agents should take the opportunity to present accident and health products when they are in front of decision-makers at firms. Here are three factors to consider when trying to convince clients to buy the products:
Access: In most cases a human-resources professional, risk manager or office administrator is the main point of contact at a company for an agent or broker, while the CFO ultimately determines which policies are indispensable and which aren’t. Therefore, cultivating your relationship with these representatives is fundamental to gaining access to a decision-maker like the CFO.
Education: Once you have gained access to the decision-maker, educating them on the many risks of business travel, from medical evacuations to kidnappings, will help to inform them about what types of exposures their employees face. (Be sure to note that not all situations are as obvious and dire); businesses can face much exposure, for example, from employee negligence.
Filling in the gaps: When approaching a client about a business-travel accident policy, be prepared for your client to say “But we have workers’ compensation.” The most important point to remember is that business-travel accident insurance is not a substitution for workers’ comp. Rather, it is its own unique coverage that helps to create a comprehensive plan that can provide travel assistance and identity-theft services, evacuations, and kidnap-and-ransom benefits.
When talking with decision-makers, explain that business travelers have very real concerns about risks. In fact, nearly half of the respondents in a recent Chubb survey said they would refuse to go on a business trip to a location they consider dangerous unless their employer provided them with emergency medical and other services.
Help clients to ease employee concerns by providing a comprehensive travel-accident plan that includes travel-accident insurance and assistance services.
