World Travel Protection expands into the UK
Travel assistance organisation World Travel Protection, part of Zurich Insurance Group, has expanded into the UK, with a core team based in London
The move comes as more corporate employers start to consider enhanced protection for their travelling employees given the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on travel, and traveller health and wellbeing.
World Travel Protection already operates two Command Centres in Brisbane, Australia and Toronto, Canada, which provide 24-hour emergency assistance to travellers via location-enabled smartphone apps and mobile connectivity.
Adrian Leach, CEO of World Travel Protection, commented: “As more borders re-open, our services will become even more essential due to the additional challenges and requirements brought about by Covid-19,” he said.
According to Zurich’s global Head of Accident and Health, Drazen Jaksic, implementing a careful, multinational business travel solution is more important than ever to protect employees’ health, safety and wellbeing, and consequently aiming to protect the business from reputational and financial impacts if something should happen.
Travel risks are becoming more complex
“Risks associated with business travel are changing rapidly and becoming more complex as exemplified by the Covid-19 pandemic, a rise in civil unrest, as well as extreme weather events and related catastrophes,” Jaksic said. “And the growing complexity of business travel risks has brought into sharp focus the value of the assistance services that are provided to help business travellers on the ground, as part of a business travel insurance programme.”
Leach added: “Organisations have an obligation to look after their people when they are travelling and try to ensure nothing foreseeable happens which could have been avoided. In addition to support services for medical, travel and security emergencies, World Travel Protection sets objectives to educate and train businesses to mitigate risks before their employees have even departed for their destination.”
Whether it be communicating a destination-specific safety risk, or alerting a member about additional policy benefits of which they were unaware, technology that allows assistance providers to maintain contact with their customers is now an essential service.