Whether you leave the vacation request binder in the employee lounge, or have an online booking system, its important to make sure employees are content knowing they have a week or two or three to get away from the daily grind.
Each employee’s vacation time is theirs to enjoy. From your perspective, its vital they come back recharged and ready to get back to work. That’s why helping to ensure that their health is taken care of while they are away makes good sense.
If they are staying close to home, your employee’s health insurance helps pay for unexpected costs. If they travel out of province, travel insurance should be part of their plans. And, if they are going out of country for their well-deserved vacation? Adequate travel insurance is the most valuable thing they can pack.
Do your employees have travel coverage already with their health insurance?
When your employee travels out of the country, or outside of their home province, many emergency medical expenses are not covered by provincial health insurance plans. That’s why its important to plan ahead with adequate travel insurance. What does adequate mean?
The emergency medical coverage covers the entire trip
Remind employees what the duration of their travel coverage is that is built into their health benefit. Its usually limited to a certain number of days. Do they have individual health insurance plans? Then coverage can range from 5 to 30 days. If their existing emergency medical travel coverage doesn’t cover the duration of their entire trip, they should ‘top up’ to extend their protection. A top-up plan can help cover travel days that are over and above the existing annual plan at a daily rate.
Trip cancellation insurance
What if your employee needs to cancel a trip due to unforeseen circumstances? It can be anything from a personal illness, legal obligation, or a problem at their destination like a natural disaster. This coverage is not included in a health plan but ensure the financial cost of their unused trip isn’t completely lost.
Trip delay and interruption coverage
If they miss a portion of their trip or it is cut short for a problem covered by your policy such as a late flight, mandatory evacuation at their destination, their host dies or is hospitalized their costs can be protected.
Baggage loss coverage
This coverage helps to pay for lost, damaged, destroyed, or stolen baggage and personal effects, anywhere in the world, on water, land or in the air. Your employee is also covered for stolen currency due to theft and payment for personal necessities if your baggage is delayed.
So, does their health insurance travel benefit cover everything they need? Its important for them to consider this carefully and takes steps to protect themselves financially with travel insurance.
You can help employees plan ahead for travel insurance
You could send employees a reminder about the importance of travel insurance when its vacation enrolment time or when you get that ‘give me 2 weeks off’ request. Buying travel insurance online at SBIS lets your employee take care of that important detail from the comfort of their own home, at any time of the day or night. To take advantage of the convenience of buying travel insurance online, they will need to purchase the coverage before they leave the province. For trip cancellation, interruption, or baggage protection, they must apply coverage as soon as they book their trip.
If your employees enjoy frequent trips out of the country, from cross-border shopping trips that last a day to weeklong vacations for some fun in the sun, or just travelling across Canada, multi-trip insurance can cover them for all of their trips within the same twelve-month period.
If getting away only happens once a year, a single trip travel insurance policy may be just what they need.
SBIS provides expert guidance your employees can trust
Just like our small business health insurance options, SBIS is proud to partner with some of the most recognizable names in the emergency medical travel insurance industry to offer comprehensive coverage at competitive rates for travel insurance from:
- Destination: Travel Health Plans
- A Single Trip Plan can cover the exact number of days of a single trip, so they don’t pay for a week of coverage for five days away
- The Annual/Multi-Trip Plan provides 8, 15, 30, or 60 days of coverage for as many trips as they need for one year following the policy effective date
- The Top-Up Plan covers extra days over and above an existing plan
- A Reduced Stability Period Option that, if qualified, will allow them to pay an additional surcharge to reduce the stability period to cover a pre-existing condition(s).
- TuGo
- From ER fees to ambulance (ground, mountain, or sea), to dental services and more, TuGo Emergency Medical travel insurance (single or multi-trip) will cover costs that provincial healthcare won’t and includes 24/7 emergency medical assistance.
- Multi-trip Annual Worldwide Medical plan saves money and protects your employee and their family within Canada and abroad for travel medical emergencies.
- If your employee doesn’t need emergency medical travel insurance coverage, they can select TuGo’s Non-Medical package to protect them for a missed flight, lost baggage, and more.
- The TuGo All-Inclusive Holiday Package is a travel plan that protects them for medical emergencies as well as everything covered in the non-medical package.
- Manulife
- With a call to Manulife’s Emergency Travel Assistance provider’s 1-800 number (included with Manulife travel insurance) your insured employee can receive evacuation if it’s urgent and medically necessary, assistance dealing with the hospital or treatment center especially if there is a language barrier, help monitoring treatment and repatriation home if they are seriously ill or injured and unable to continue their trip.
Each of the carriers we work with has different types of coverage available for your travel insurance needs. SBIS can be a dependable guide to help choose the right insurance carrier.
Isn’t it time for your vacation too?
As a small business owner, you carry a lot of responsibility, but taking a vacation and getting away from it all has a positive psychological and emotional impact that can help you be ready and able to build your business day to day. In short, taking time off is good for your health. In fact, if you are very public about taking time off (and taking it in long stretches) it sends a clear message to your staff that taking vacation won’t hurt their performance review or career prospects. It will help their health.
Ensuring you can take care of any health emergency while you are away vital, especially because unexpected healthcare costs can drain your financial resources. Having travel insurance protects you from that, so make certain its on the top of your vacation list of priorities.
If you or your employees require any assistance at any time in the travel insurance purchase process, call us at 1-800-667-0429 during our regular business hours, or email us at general@sbis.ca for prompt service at any time.
