Travel insurance for business trips

Travel insurance for businesses can offer a range of benefits to help give you peace of mind. Under a comprehensive policy, you can typically be covered for:

• A benefit paid to your family in the event of your accidental death while travelling.
• Business equipment and personal belongings essential for your trip, including laptops, credit cards, tablets and smartphones.
• Personal effects, including your luggage and valuables.
• Medical treatment and emergency assistance abroad including repatriation and medical evacuation.
• Loss of deposits and additional expenses such as cancellations or travel delays due to unforeseen circumstances or events out of your control.
• Missed flights, including both outbound and returning to Australia.
• Personal liability protection if you are liable for injury or damages to another person or their property.

As always, check your policy’s Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) to know what’s included in your cover. You should also read the Target Market Determination (TMD) to understand if a policy is suited to you and your business. If you’re taking out a group policy, ensure each traveller has also read the policy wording of both documents.

There are some limits and exclusions to travel insurance for business trips that you should be aware of before travel commences. Claims resulting from the following may not accepted:

• Pre-existing medical conditions (unless approved by your insurer)
• Travelling against a doctor’s advice
• Alcohol or drug-related incidents
• Illegal or criminal acts
• Any change of travel plans that aren’t due to unforeseen circumstances
• Travelling to countries or regions with a travel warning

Many travel insurance providers nowadays may automatically cover certain pre-existing medical conditions. Many providers will also assess other medical conditions and potentially allow you to include cover for these.

Even if your condition is automatically included in your travel insurance cover, you still need to declare it to your insurance provider when taking out cover.

Some travel insurance policies may have age limits that exclude senior travellers or attract higher premiums, as well as reduced timeframes for trips in an annual multi-trip policy. If this is the case, you might be required to purchase travel insurance that covers over 50s or over 65s.

Whether taking a business trip or a personal holiday, travel insurance usually won’t cover a destination if that country or region has an active travel warning. These travel warnings can change based on the situation within that country, so it’s essential to regularly check the warnings for your destination.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) or Smartraveller will usually list any warnings for the countries you need to travel to. If you take out travel insurance for businesses prior to a travel warning being issued (e.g. due to a natural disaster or armed conflict), you can still be covered for any cancellations or changes. It’s also a good idea to check the policy’s PDS for any excluded countries.

If your family travels with you on a business trip, you may prefer travel insurance for families, which can cover you, your partner and your dependent children. This will likely cost more than if you were purchasing a policy just for yourself.

Check your PDS for the exact details on what you’re covered for.

Unfortunately, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) advises that you cannot claim travel insurance for businesses as a tax deduction.¹ However, you may be able to claim some other work-related travel expenses such as:

• Airfares, taxi, car hire and public transport expenses
• Accommodation and meal expenses (if the trip is overnight)
• Motor vehicle hire, tolls, fuel and car parking fee (when hiring a car for work-related purposes).

The ATO notes that keeping a travel diary and recording all business activity, work-related expenses and overnight business travel costs is mandatory for sole traders travelling for six or more consecutive nights, and highly recommended for all other businesses.

Private expenses and transport costs that aren’t work-related activities (like souvenirs, sightseeing or entertainment) aren’t covered, and cannot be claimed on your personal tax return or otherwise used to reduce your payable income tax for the financial year.