Travel insurance is a promise about what happens after something goes wrong. If you send an employee to Ukraine, your job starts earlier. What has the traveller been told? Who do they call? Does the policy fit this trip?

Ukraine travel insurance for a business trip raises questions a tourist never asks. A tourist insures themselves. An employer sends someone else on the company’s behalf. ISO 31030, the international standard on travel risk management, gives organisations guidance on exactly this: assessing and managing the risks of business travel.

1. Put four questions to the policy

Ask your insurer or broker, in writing:

• Does the policy apply to a trip to Ukraine, and how does it treat war? Our guide to Ukraine war risk insurance shows what to ask.
• Does cover depend on where in Ukraine the employee goes, on a risk rating, or on your government’s travel advice? These change. Ask what happens if they change while your employee is there.
• Who is insured? Employees only, or also contractors and visitors travelling for you? Is every traveller named? Are there age limits? Do Ukrainian colleagues travelling in their own country get the same cover?
• What is in the cover? The Ukraine travel insurance we arrange includes medical expenses and medical assistance, medical evacuation once the traveller is fit to travel, personal accident cover (accidental death or permanent total disablement), search and rescue, funeral costs and repatriation of mortal remains, and a pre-travel security briefing before the first trip to Ukraine. Compare your own policy with that list, and ask about anything missing.

2. Know who to call

Before departure, give every traveller two things: the emergency number for medical assistance, and the way to report a claim or an accident. Save both in the traveller’s phone and carry them in print too. Treatment comes first: the traveller is cared for locally, and medical evacuation out of Ukraine follows once they are fit to travel. Ask your broker who arranges the evacuation and who decides when the traveller is fit to travel.

3. Brief the traveller

A briefing turns a policy into a plan. At Nordic Broker, every client and every traveller gets a security briefing, and we give it ourselves. We brief the client before the policy starts and each traveller before their first trip, not after arrival. The briefing covers:

• practical safety guidelines for business travel to Ukraine
• advice on getting to and moving around different parts of Ukraine
• a walk through the insurance terms and how the cover responds to a claim
• how to report a claim or an accident

We give it online, by phone or in person, and we support clients who wish to call or email afterwards with additional questions. Our security team is located in Ukraine to help in any matter.

4. Cover the basics yourself

Some of this sits with you, not with the insurer. Settle it before the trip:

• Who approves the trip, and who knows where each traveller is. One booking route helps.
• A check-in routine, agreed in advance. Ask whether daily check-in calls are offered.
• Phone roaming on and devices charged. Networks can fail, so agree a fallback.
• The traveller’s embassy contact details saved in their phone.

5. Talk to us

Nordic Broker is a team of insurance brokers in Helsinki with more than 30 years of experience. We operate in Ukraine, we are supervised by the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finanssivalvonta), and since the war began we have helped hundreds of businesses and travellers with their insurance in Ukraine. Tell us who is travelling and where. We will go through the policy and the briefing with you.

Read next

• Ukraine war risk insurance: what to check in your own cover