Traveling Experience

Introduction to Travel Health, Safety and Security Benefits

When it comes to travel risk management and the benefits of travel health, safety and security, this is what every travel, human resources, risk and general manager should know. In this article we will cover workplace health and safety standardization, productivity, efficiency and safety that complies with the company’s social and legal obligations. By reading this article you will be able to identify the main business benefits of enhanced travel health, safety and security for business travellers and determine if you our your company have a demonstrable travel risk management system that support workplace health and safety and fulfills your social and legal primary duty of care objectives.

After all, why would you exclude business travel from your overall business health, safety and security strategy and objectives?

Workplace Standardization: Travel Health, Safety and Security Benefits

Travel Risk Management Benefits

Have you ever seen or visited a worksite/office where they proudly display the amount of hours or days since the last significant incident that disrupted work progress or endangered employee safety? Most likely. Have you ever seen similar or specific information displayed and communicated relevant to the last significant incident that disrupted business travel or endangered business traveller’s safety? Probably not.

Travel risk management is not, and should not, a stand-alone or extra-ordinary risk mitigation system. It is merely a standardization between the more traditional or know workplace, office, and site health and safety requirements and expectations for employees. It is simply an extension to include all mobile and traveling personnel by means of concern, planning, resourcing and support to maximize business performance, efficiency and safety as it relates to business travel.

Any business that does not have a universal approach, that is inclusive of business travel, is sending mixed messages to their employees and most likely exposing them unnecessarily to compliance and litigation issues.

While the primary motivator for travel risk management by way of health, safety and security enhancements, should not be compliance and litigation avoidance, embracing the objective of improved and acceptable workplace health and safety for all employees will certainly take a step in the right direction to meeting both of these outcomes.

Improved whole of workplace health, safety and security
The war for talent is far from over and one of the considerations by high value talent is the demands and support associated with business travel. Awareness of business travel health, safety and security has risen significantly in recent years but is still significantly more advanced than the supporting travel risk management systems and processes. Employers of choice and those maintaining competitive advantages in the market have been the first to adopt the principles with both tangible and intangible benefits.

Creating false class or safety standards within a company is never an advisable strategy, however failure to adequately support and care for you business traveling population results in exactly that. There should be no noticeable difference to travellers of all levels of experience and status in the company’s workplace health and safety mechanisms and planning, when transiting from a fixed office/workplace to that of a mobile business travel workplace or journey.

A simple standardization for those yet to implement a working travel health, safety and security strategy is advisable. Those with existing systems and processes need only ensure they remain extant and consistent with the overall company business travel objectives and social or legal expectations.

Improved Productivity, efficiency and safety
Standardized and effective business wide health, safety and security systems have proven and measurable business benefits.

Productivity derived from managed business travel can increased dramatically when inclusive of travel risk management. Lost hours, delays, disruptions, reduced work capacity and cost containment are all by-products of travel health, safety and security via travel risk management.

Given that multiple overlapping departments support and manage business travel, the total amount of wastage and efficiency management is rarely visible in a single report or budget review. Significant efficiencies can be realized when the entire system is standardized to support travel administration, planning, health, safety and security. Compounding savings and harmonized expenditure can result in thousands of dollars in working capital saved or re-injected back into the business.

Conclusion: Travel Health, Safety and Security Benefits
The benefits of travel risk management relating to travel health, safety and security should now be apparent to any business owner or manager. While workplace health and safety compliance does apply to business travel it will also result in sizable business savings and cost efficiencies if undertaken correctly, while meeting or exceeding any compliance or company’s social and legal obligations. Objectively review your current travel health, safety and security systems specific to travel risk management and use this advice as a guide to make comparisons or rectify any omissions to your processes immediately.

A health insurance plan is an essential part of financial planning in this era of skyrocketing medical costs. Medical inflation has been aggravating at its full spree which makes it all the more important to buy a Health Insurance plan which could sponsor the hospitalization and medical treatment bills or expenses.

It is important to evaluate and look for the following parameters to get a best health plan for you and your family.

1. Check for the Waiting Period Clause

You must be feeling care free after taking an insurance, but your health insurance comes with a waiting period clause for specific conditions. There is an initial period clause which says that any hospitalization claim will not be admissible in first 30 days of the policy commencement apart from accidental hospitalization.The pre-existing diseases or conditions are also not covered immediately after you purchase a policy.There is a waiting period ranging from 2 years to 4 years as per the plan conditions in the industry. Also, there are certain surgeries and treatments like hernia, cataract, joint replacement, etc. which can be treated after a specific waiting period of 1 or 2 years.

So,it is important to check the waiting period clause before you finalize the health plan.

2. Check for Sublimits

There are certain capping or sublimits in your health plan which says that the specific kind of expenses are paid by the insurance company upto a specific limit and beyond that the insured or customer has to bear them at his own. For example: Room rent charges are capped on per day basis for different health plans. Some health plans also come with a mandatory co-pay where the portion of the admissible claim is to be borne by the insured and the remaining is paid by the insurance company.

Check for the sublimits in your health plan to avoid any last minute surprises at the time of claim.

3. Check for Network Hospitals

The insurance companies offering health plans have certain empaneled network hospitals with whom they have a tie up. Any hospitalization or treatment taken in the mentioned or specified network hospital list is done on the cashless basis subject to policy conditions.

Check for the list of network hospitals of insurance company and ensure you have network hospitals of the insurer near your place of residence in case of any emergency hospitalization. Also, a treatment in non-network hospital may not offer cashless treatment and some insurers have a co-pay clause if you take a treatment in non-network hospital.

4. Check for the Claim Process

Different insurance companies have different claim procedures. Some settle or administer claims through Third Party Administrators (TPA’s) and some have their own in house claim settlement unit to foster quick and hassle free claim processing. Also, check the claim settlement ratio of the insurer you intend to buy a health plan from to have a clear picture on the number of claims settled by the insurer.

It is important to have a handy information on claims procedure to have a smooth and hassle free treatment in the times of hospitalization.

5. Compare & Buy Online

It is important to take a right buying decision which can be done by comparing the available health insurance plans online. You can compare the price, key features, policy benefits, value added benefits, eligibility, exclusions,etc. of multiple health insurance plans to make a right informed choice of your own without any interference of the agents. Buying online health insurance plan is a hassle free process which required least documentation and quick policy processing. There are certain online portals which will enable you to make an easy comparison and will assist you in choosing the right Health insurance plan.

Online buying of the health plan is economical as companies offer discounts on premium for buying a policy online. The reason for an insurance policy to be cost effective if bought online is because the intermediary cost of the premium component is removed. When there is no intermediary in between, Co.’s save on the commission and policy issuance cost, which the Co. transfers it to the customers.

For over two hundred years the American education system has been based on the right of all its citizens to an education. Through this guiding principle America has led the world to expanded education opportunity for women, oppressed minorities, and populations generally. As the world has come to embrace the American philosophy, America is abandoning this core belief and dividing education into the wealthy, who can afford education, and the rest of the country that will not be able to afford it.

For several decades, American education was in retreat in the technical areas of science and engineering. To address these deficiencies, technical schools in secondary education and for profit colleges came into existence. They encouraged students not inclined to pursue additional education to enter technical fields and pursue higher education. Students that would not become engaged in a process of learning were suddenly involved. Students who could not make passing grades were suddenly making the A’s and B’s in vocational technical courses and for profit technical institutions.

Today, these two areas of education constitute a growing number of successful students actively involved in higher education. Vocational schools and for profit colleges are designed to encourage students to become involved in technical careers, and are often structured without much of the liberal arts training that accompany traditional degrees. There’s been a longstanding disagreement as to whether students should be funneled into specific and very narrow technical educational streams, or weather all students should be forced to obtain a more generalized education designed to move them toward undergraduate degrees and eventually to graduate degrees.

Although this disagreement has ragged for several generations, the effect of vocational training and for profit technical institutions cannot be denied. They have successfully moved a large segment of the population into technical careers very successfully. However, in recent months the department of education has begun to take issue with the success of the schools because they cannot guarantee that their graduates will be able to meet income guidelines created to show the success of American education of dollars that are being spent for these programs. Vocational schools and secondary education are being cut across the nation in response to the economic downturn our society is currently facing, and this policy of the department of education. Rather than address the more complex issue of how we can meld traditional, and technical areas of education into a single educational system, federal funding to provide vocational training and technical education is being slashed by the Federal government.

At a time when the administration and the business community l recognize the need for a stronger commitment to technical education throughout the country, we are reducing the ability of students to obtain the education loans necessary to pay for their education because we have a fundamental disagreement as to whether there should be more general education in English, literature and the arts, and less a single minded focus on a narrow technical field. This seems to be an argument without merit since both have the single purpose of trying to educate the American public to be competitive in the marketplace of tomorrow. This is occurring at the same time that a recent study has demonstrated that the effect of a college education benefits all students whether it is in their field, general education, or in a narrow technical area. Rather than building on that premise to encourage students across the country to pursue higher education, our focus has turned to the ability of students to repay the loans to banks as the single determining factor as to whether the education was useful. The standard being put forward by the department of education does just that.

It focuses their efforts on seeing that students can make enough money to repay the loans, rather than focusing on why education costs are rising so dramatically. Their focus is on making sure that students repay banks. With businesses making arguments that they need to import more foreign workers to meet the growing technical demand of high tech industry, we’re forcing American students out of the educational system as we argue their ability to pay back a bank is the single determining factor as to the quality of their education. This would not be so absurd if it were not for another of movement that is taking place in grade schools around the country today.

For people who have money, there is a growing need for private preschools that are for profit in nature to prepare their children for the prestigious schools that select only a handful of American students each year. This for profit model for primary and secondary schools is becoming as popular in United States as it is abroad in countries such as Europe and Asia. Parents of wealth are quick to hand over as much as $40,000 a year to have their children placed in preparatory schools that will prepare them for prestigious colleges. Currently, a number of private investors are putting up as much as $200,000,000 to fund these types of for profit institutions. It is a growth industry that will find a burgeoning market place with in this country and abroad as the division between haves and have-nots in education continues to broaden.

These parents have little faith in the public education system in this country. They are putting their money, and their children in the hands of for profit institutions that they believe will make them better able to compete in the highly technical world of tomorrow. As Madison Avenue at the American banking system find a new profitable market, they will exploit it as fully and as completely as they have the traditional American education system, to the detriment of the larger society. Education in this country is becoming a tool of banks and the wealthy and not what was envisioned by the founding fathers or the many men and women who helped create this country over many generations. It is no longer serving the public need and only looks to the needs of the wealthy, and the financial institutions whose profit motive is the single driving force for their existence.

While the rest of the world is adopting the American model of an educational system that is the envy of the world, we are abandoning that system to move toward one that cannot serve the nation or the society. If we continue down this road our nation will be forever looking to the educational systems of other countries to provide the technological expertise, and the innovative thinking that will move the world and the society forward. In one breath the department of education for our nation is telling us that for profit institutions do not work and we must regarded with suspicion graduates at any college level from these institutions, while at the same time this same model is being instituted at grade schools and in elementary schools across the nation because there is a growing need for a better education system to meet the standards of tomorrow. However this growing need excludes much of American Society. If we follow this path it will only the wealthy will receive an education in this country.