Corporate travel insurance

What corporate travel insurance is

This is an annual policy that covers your employees whenever they travel for work. Instead of buying a personal travel policy for each trip, the company holds one policy with one renewal date, and every business trip in the year is covered: overseas medical expenses and evacuation, trip cancellation and delays, lost luggage and business equipment, and personal accident while travelling. Plans are priced by region (within Asia-Pacific, or worldwide) and by how many people travel.

What moves the price

• How many employees travel. The price is a rate per traveller a year. HL Assurance takes 10% off from 15 travellers and 15% off from 50; QBE takes 10% off from 11, 15% from 25 and 20% above 50. QBE and EQ Insurance each charge at least S$500 a policy; EQ and Etiqa give no group discount, and Etiqa has no minimum.
• Where they go. A Regional plan covers ASEAN, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Mongolia, Japan, South Korea, India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Australia and New Zealand (QBE's Asia Pacific plan adds Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tibet and the Pacific islands; EQ's Regional list adds Bangladesh and Pakistan but leaves out Mongolia and the Maldives; Etiqa's Regional is its Zones 1 and 2, which add South and Central Asia and the Middle East). An International plan covers every country not under sanctions.
• Named or unnamed. Fewer than five travellers are named on the policy; from five the policy covers your employees unnamed, so you can send whoever needs to go.
• Business only, or holidays too. QBE prices a plan that also covers your employees' private holidays for the year, and EQ Insurance adds 25% for its leisure trip extension, on named travellers only; the business-only plans, like HL Assurance's and Etiqa's, cover the business trip and the leisure days around it.
• Basic or Comprehensive at Etiqa. Etiqa's Basic cover is medical, evacuation and personal accident only; its Comprehensive cover adds trip cancellation, delays, baggage, business equipment and liability. The cards say which.
• Age moves nothing within each insurer's limits: HL Assurance covers full-time employees aged 18 to 70, renewable to 75; QBE those aged 65 or under at first cover, renewable to 80; EQ Insurance those aged 16 to 80; Etiqa those aged 16 to 75. All four are for office-based staff.
• GST. HL Assurance's prices include GST. EQ's brochure and Etiqa's page say no GST is charged on theirs. QBE's brochure prints its figures without saying.

Before you choose

• Per-person or per-trip. Small teams usually pay a rate per traveller per year; larger ones can insure total travel days instead, which is cheaper when trips are short. The prices above are per traveller.
• Trip length. Each trip is covered up to 182 days at HL Assurance and EQ Insurance, 180 at Etiqa and 120 at QBE; longer postings need a different policy.
• COVID-19. HL Assurance's, QBE's and Etiqa's plans cover COVID-19 medical expenses overseas; EQ's Biz Care Travel does not cover COVID-19 at all (EQ sells a separate Travel CovidSafe policy).
• Leisure days tacked onto a business trip are covered by some plans and not others. HL Assurance's covers both the business and the leisure part of a trip within the policy year. If your staff extend trips privately, ask for this in writing.
• More than 50 travellers. HL Assurance quotes larger groups by email from its own site; QBE's brochure prices any size, with 20% off above 50; EQ's and Etiqa's price any size at the same rate per head.