Business travel insurance from the UAE

If your employer bought your travel cover, the terms below may not be the ones that apply to you. Ask your employer’s insurer or broker what its policy says.

Is your laptop or work equipment covered?

Not under baggage cover with AIG, Liva, GIG Gulf or Allianz Partners. AIG excludes loss of business goods or samples.¹ Liva excludes business samples, tools of trade and other items used for your job.² GIG Gulf uses nearly the same list.³ Allianz Partners excludes property used for business or trade, and property you do not own.⁴

Liva sells a plan called Executive Travel. Its exclusion for business items has no exception for that plan.²

Daman has a separate benefit for loss of a personal laptop abroad, with conditions on how you carried it. It excludes a laptop left in checked-in luggage, in a vehicle or in a tent.⁵ Orient counts laptops inside its valuables limit and asks for proof of ownership or purchase for the higher figure. Its baggage section does not mention a work laptop.⁶

Allianz Partners excludes property you do not own. The other policies do not say whether a laptop your employer owns is covered. Ask your insurer before you travel with one.

Can you cancel for a work reason?

Only for the reasons your policy lists. Orient, Daman, Allianz Partners and Mastercard each list different work reasons.

• Orient: death, serious injury or serious illness of a business associate, meaning someone in your home country whose absence means a head of department needs you to cancel or cut short the trip. Also being needed by the police after a burglary or listed damage at your usual place of business in your home country.⁶
• Daman: death, injury or illness of a person you arranged to do business with, or being needed at your place of business after a burglary or major damage.⁵
• Allianz Partners: a permanent move of your main home by at least 150 kilometres because your current employer transfers you.⁴
• Mastercard card cover: unexpected loss of formal employment.⁷

A cancelled meeting is not a listed reason in any of these. Orient excludes financial circumstances and unemployment.⁶

Two policies cover a call to duty. Daman lists a call to emergency duty in the armed forces, police, fire, rescue, public utility or medical services.⁵ Allianz Partners lists a first responder called in for duty.⁴

Are you covered if your trip involves manual work?

Not with Salama or Daman, and other insurers exclude it from some or all cover. Salama and Daman do not insure anyone travelling for work, paid or not, that involves physical or manual hazardous activity. Their lists include machinery, loading, working at heights and laboratory work, and Salama’s also names driving vehicles.⁸⁵

• Orient’s activity section gives no cover for any kind of manual work, and the wording does not define manual work.⁶
• Allianz Partners excludes manual or hazardous work from its Travel Accident cover.⁴
• AIG excludes work underground or work that needs explosives.¹
• GIG Gulf excludes manual work connected with a profession, business or trade.³

If your trip involves any physical work, ask your insurer in writing whether you are covered.

Are business liability and legal costs covered?

Not by AIG or Liva. AIG’s personal liability cover excludes loss or injury arising from your profession or business.¹ Liva’s legal expenses cover excludes claims from your business or professional activities.²

The small print

• GIG Gulf’s definition of a trip. It names a holiday, pleasure trip, cruise trip or journey. The manual work exclusion is General Exclusion h).³
• Daman’s ineligibility rule. It sits under Not Eligible Insured Person, item f).⁵