If you’re like me, you’re out there watching TikTok videos or working with remote teams without a care of where in the world they are. But, when it comes to your business insurance, country boundaries are very important and make a huge difference as to when something is covered and when something is not covered.

As a little exercise, ask yourself these questions:

• Do you have an office or location overseas with business property?
• Do you sell products internationally or have international suppliers?
• Do you have payroll outside of the U.S?
• Do you or your employees attend trade shows, events, or meetings overseas?
• Does your company perform any work on U.S. Military bases in foreign countries?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you likely are in need of an international policy. So why does it matter?

• Your policy likely has territory restrictions. This means that the policy you purchased in the U.S. will not extend past the U.S., Puerto Rico, or U.S. territories.
• Your U.S. business policy does not cover employees living in countries outside of the U.S., Puerto Rico, & territories that travel to the U.S. for business purposes. So it may not cover your colleague from Ireland while traveling to their Austin home office.
• On the flip side, your U.S. policy does not cover domestic employees when they travel to foreign countries. Foreign voluntary worker’s compensation coverage may respond when you get sick from an endemic disease or break a leg in a foreign country. Additional costs like unique air transportation or extra airline seats to elevate the broken leg can be picked up by Repatriation coverage.
• An International policy picks up operations and liability, so if an employee were to accidentally leave the hotel water running all day or trip on an expensive piece of equipment at a conference, the International General Liability might come into play.
• An employee wants to bring their family along to a cool new country they are visiting for work. Most international policies will pick up companion travel to also cover their family while traveling.

• You have expensive business equipment like a laptop, trade show materials, or products that you are traveling with from Austin to Singapore. International property coverage would protect your company from theft or lost items.

So what is international insurance? International or Foreign Insurance covers you and your business while traveling outside of the U.S., Puerto Rico, and territories for property, general liability, auto, foreign voluntary worker’s compensation, repatriation, and kidnap & ransom to name a few. Most carriers package these coverage options up into a neat, packaged policy.

At some point, your business might grow internationally beyond what is being covered. For example, you open up a warehouse in Europe to house inventory being sent throughout the world or you acquire an international subsidiary with an office in Singapore. At this point a master program is needed for Difference in Conditions/Difference in Limits policy. Because each country has its own insurance requirements, a DIC/DIL policy will fill in any gaps in insurance.

Do you want to know more about International insurance?

About Lumen: 

Lumen Insurance Technologies is a tech-focused commercial insurance agency based in Austin, Texas. Lumen is hyper-focused on providing the technology startup ecosystem with quality commercial insurance coverage (e.g. D&O, E&O, Cyber, etc.) following a funding event and beyond. 

Check us out on the web at www.lumeninsure.com to find more blog topics, general info,  or to get help with finding coverage. Email us at info@lumeninsure.com if you would like to suggest a topic for future blogs. 

Connect with us and stay up to date with news from our client base by following us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.