Importance of Terrorism Coverage for Expats

Unfortunately, the world has been gripped by an increase in the number of high profile terrorist attacks, including Paris, Thailand, Indonesia and the recent terrorist attack by ISIS operative in Brussels, Belgium. The recent advances of the terrorist group ISIS in Iraq, Libya, Syria and other countries have unfortunately increased the level of terrorism and civil strife in the region. Unfortunately, the terrorist ideology is spreading from countries such as Syria and Iraq throughout many parts of the world. Europe is currently in the grip of a major terrorist threat.

Normally, expatriate employers and individual expats will want to obtain a policy which doesn’t exclude terrorism, war or civil strife. If they are residing or visiting high-risk countries where terrorism and other disturbances are a common place occurrence. However, the recent events in “safe countries” such as France and Belgium, may cause many expatriate HR managers and even individual expatriates to start thinking about obtaining a plan that will not exclude a claim that is the result of being caught up as an innocent bystander should terrorism strike.

Most expat health, life, and disability plans will exclude passive war and terrorism. Passive war or terrorism means you were not being an active participant in the even and were simply caught up as an innocent bystander. However, TFG Global/Expat Financial is able to source global medical coverage, international life & disability and other coverage that will cover passive war and terrorism – usually on a group basis, but we can sometimes source individual plans as well for some travelers and expats.

If your company is sending people abroad, today’s risk environment may necessitate obtaining a plan that will cover today’s terrorist environment where such events can strike almost anywhere. Luckily, our company is highly experienced in covering employees and travellers to very high-risk countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. The international group insurance plans that we can source for multinational employers, governments and NGOs often include war risk at little or no extra charge.

We are also a Lloyds of London appointed agent which has direct access via our underwriters in London and can source coverage for employees in the riskiest and challenging regions. These underwriters can source individual risk coverage that can meet almost any risk matrix.

It’s the world we live in, and terrorism will likely not reduce in the near or medium term. It makes sense for expat employers to obtain coverage that will protect their employees against terrorism risk in high and low-risk regions of the world. We can only hope for the best that terrorist events will become less frequent, but plan for the worst.