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Companies that begin doing foreign business normally purchase a foreign country insurance policy that is designed to cover events that occur outside the domestic U.S. Before committing any funds and sending a lot of employees abroad, ask questions about what the policy will cover and what it will not.  Here are some questions to have your agent, broker or insurance company representative answer for you first before jumping, bare and financially uncovered, into the international market.

Questions to ask before buying foreign insurance policies:

• Can our employees rent cars and trucks to drive in that country?
• Must we specify ahead of time to our insurance company the countries where we wish to conduct business?
• What is the list of countries not covered by insurance?
• If our employees are caught and arrested with illegal substances, banned items or any other type of contraband specific in that country, are any of these costs covered by the policy?
• If we hire a trucking firm to move freight for us and the load disappears and is not covered by this foreign freight firm, does this insurance policy cover any of these losses? If it does, what are the restrictions? If it does not, what type of policy do we need to purchase?
• If our employees have an accident, what must they do? When do they report it to our insurance company? What type of damage is covered?  What is not covered? What is the deductible?
• If the policy is for $1M and the employee does more damage than this limit, can the balance of the claim revert to an existing excess or umbrella coverage policy, or are there restrictions?
• We want company owned machinery, raw material, work in process and all finished goods that are sitting in a foreign country to be covered for fire, theft and other accidents. What types of losses are not covered in this policy?
• If our employees take their spouses or family members and they are hurt, does this policy pay for their injury? If this policy does not cover these losses, what type of policy should the employee purchase himself?
• If our employees drink, drive and kill someone in the foreign country, does the insurance policy cover this?
• If the employee rents a car and does damage to the car, does this policy cover that? If it does not, how do we get auto coverage for our employees?
• Does this policy cover any type of ransom or costs if our employees or visiting staff are kidnapped? If so, what are the limits and what are the types of circumstances covered?
• Are the countries that are covered in our company’s policy recommended for driving? If not, is there a list of countries not covered for private employee driving?
• If we go to the foreign warehouse that we were using and everything is cleaned out and everyone is gone, how do we report this loss to the insurance company? How does this type of loss claim work? What are the steps to document this financial claim?

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