Picking an international insurance broker may be easier than you might think.  The main reason for this is, there are not many international insurance brokers in the United States.  A broker with primarily a U.S. domestic practice that has clients with international exposures on a few accounts is NOT an international insurance broker.  Here are some ways to distinguish the true international insurance brokers from the pretenders:

1. Is the broker specializing in international?  What is the percentage of international risk clients to domestic?  If the broker is not at least 80% international, steer clear.  A client that has 100 employees in the U.S. and a few employees traveling is not an international account.
2. What is the experience of the broker?  If the “international insurance broker” has not been in the business for at least 5 years (and that means concentrating on international risk management for over 5 years) steer clear, they won’t know enough about the important topics.  It’s been vogue for U.S. brokers to get involved in the international brokerage business in the last 5 years and they may believe they are fully qualified to advise clients on international risk management, but there are many problems.  We have a word of advice;  If you have placed an expatriate medical insurance program for a client, this does not make you an international insurance broker.  International risk management is about much more than expatriate medical insurance!
3. Steer clear of brokers that are eager to spreadsheet carriers and options.  This is really a signal they don’t know very much about anything international.  An established international insurance broker makes a very “early on” recommendation as to what the best carrier is for the client’s specific situation and does not need to run a spreadsheet and shop the entire market every time.  In most instances, once carrier will emerge as a pure fit for the clients needs, situation, and budget and a good international insurance broker will know which one very early one without spreadsheets and giant RFP requests.
4. Is the international insurance broker licensed in the State where the client resides?  Is the broker licensed in both employee benefits and international property and casualty?

Do you want to test your broker to see if they can also be your international consultant.  Give them this test.  Ask them:

1. Define a local national.  Can we cover them under any of our U.S. insurance plans. (Answer:  A local national is an employee of the country working inside their country of citizenship.  A Mexican national working in Mexico city for example and NO they can never be covered by a U.S. insurance plan.
2. If the answer above is correct ask why local nationals can’t be covered by U.S. life, LTD, or workers comp plans.  If the answer is “our U.S. carrier won’t pick them up” that answer is WRONG.  It’s almost always illegal to insure a local national outside of their local country.

Of course, employers should want to do what is right for their international employees, including expatriates, local nationals, and global business travelers.  Today, the consequences for not doing enough to protect the health, safety, and security of international assignees goes beyond the moral obligation, it’s now a legal concern and it’s called duty of care legislation.

Legally, compliance for multinational corporations is much more complex than for domestic organizations. Global employers may need to deal with extraterritorial scope of legislation pertaining to foreign jurisdictions and choices of law. Several countries have developed duty-of-care legislation, including recently Australia and New Zealand.  In countries such as the United Kingdom, failure to uphold duty-of-care obligations can result in civil and criminal liabilities for individuals, not just companies!  In Germany for example, liabilities for sickness and health related costs actually extend to family members who visit the expatriate in various host countries! Read the rest of this entry »

We will be updating both employers that send people to work internationally and expatriates themselves on all of the following topics at least once a week so check back often: Read the rest of this entry »