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TRAVEL RISK MANAGEMENT 2015
WOLTERS KLUWER
ELIZABETH QUEEN, Vice-President Risk Management at Wolters Kluwer
Activity sector: Global information services and publishing, focused on professionals
Public company
Head office: The Netherlands
Business Locations: 40
Number of travellers/expatriates: Approximately
1 200 (internationally) out of 19 000 employees
Number of countries where the organisation is set up/ has an activity: Over 150
Q1 How important is the management of health, safety and security risks for international/cross-border workers for your organisation? How has this developed in importance over the last five years? How do you think it will change over the next five years?
As we have increased our global presence, travel risks have become more important for us. We expect this trend to continue. We travel often in order to best serve our key professional communities around the world: legal and regulatory; tax and accounting; finance, audit and compliance; and healthcare. We serve both private and public sectors. This is not just in established economies, but also in developing and emerging markets. We are a European based company with strong branches in North America. We have been in China since the early 1980s and our presence in India and Brazil is growing. One of the ways that we grow is via acquisitions. When companies we buy have good ideas or locally successful solutions, we might integrate them into what we do and then share them via our global infrastructure with the rest of the world. This brings us back to your question about travel.
Focusing on travel, it is fair to say that the world has become a more “interesting” workplace. One does not need to look beyond any news source on any given day to see that travel is less predictable than it once was, and I do not see it getting simpler any time soon. Given today’s complexities, business travellers need access to up to date information so they and their employers can better understand and manage the risks they face on the road.
Q2 Does your organisation have a specific duty of care (or similar) policy covering international/cross-border business travel? If so, what does this include?
Yes, we do. As a general principle, employers have a duty to care to provide a safe place of work for their employees. Likewise, there is a reciprocal responsibility of business travellers (the employees) to understand and reasonably avoid the risks they might encounter during their day-to-day work. We have a company travel policy that provides basic guidelines not only for managing expenses, but certain travel risks. In parallel with the travel risk landscape, this process and policy are evolving in nature and are updated periodically.
We also have various travel insurance policies and other protection programmes. For example, we have a global travel accident and medical insurance policy that addresses insured domestic and international travel risks. Other components of that global travel programme include expat/mobility insurance (for longer term stays abroad), and an international travel assistance and security programme.
For our US employees, we have also have in place a foreign voluntary workers compensation programme. In the United States, certain employment health risks are typically covered by compulsory worker’s compensation insurance. However, worker’s compensation does not cross-borders very well. Buying foreign voluntary cover provides extra territorial scope for worker’s compensation. For other jurisdictions, this is typically less complicated.
Q3 How does your organisation bring together the functions of the different internal stakeholders in managing travel security and what is your role? To what extent is senior management involved and how (active participation, reporting)?
We have cross-disciplinary corporate risk committees to focus on some of our core risks. We take a similar multi-functional approach to Travel Risk Management which, depending upon the matter, might involve our department, travel management, HR, communications, finance, and of course, the business.
Among other things, risk management is responsible for the global travel insurance policies and related claims. We are also responsible for global and non-US benefits programmes. During the past year, in both risk and benefits management capacities, we have gained responsibility for the international travel assistance and security programme.
This expansion of our department’s role in Travel Risk Management came about via a request from a divisional CEO who asked us to look into whether to continue
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