Did you know that last year, more than 100 000 cases of kidnapping were recorded around the world? Why should you take out kidnapping insurance for yourself, your family or your employees?

International companies, NGOs and individuals continue to develop activities and trade in areas subject to military unrest, political, social, epidemic, sometimes risking their lives …

Insurance, although it cannot cover 100% of the risk to human life, provides group and individual protection, concentrated in two areas …

KIDNAPPING AND RANSOM INSURANCE

Although most abductions only last a few hours or days, some can drag on for weeks or years … It can also sometimes be “simple” case of extortion:

• Threat of kidnapping
• Death threats
• Blackmail
  • Hackers threatening cyber attacks
  • Contamination threats to a manufacturer
  • …

The profile of the victims is variable and the motivation for the act is generally financial. Multinational and expatriates are prime targets, as well as celebrities and their relatives in their country …

Kidnapping insurance will cover the ransom in kidnapping case of a natural person or attempted extortion

Upstream, the insurer will have organized negotiation, employing leading companies in this type of intervention. These are often converted former military operatives who will be on the ground for the successful conclusion (in theory!) of the case.

Such kidnapping insurance will also typically support the operating loss to a company on the death of an employee, any psychiatric, medical or disability expenses to a freed hostage, and even potential legal fees for the company …

This type of contract is confidential but most major international groups take out some form of kidnapping insurance for their employees and assignments, all over the world. To cover fifty heads exposed in at-risk areas, the annual premium will be less than 2% of the insured sum . This guarantee is therefore important, yet affordable for companies who send people into the more dangerous places of the world, or are exposed through their activities to risks of piracy and blackmail. For reasons of speed, efficiency or simply discretion, an entrepreneur may prefer this option to diplomatic or legal channels, which can also take place in parallel.

CRISIS ASSISTANCE AND SAFETY

This subscription is to provide advice and logistics to people in danger, who are not supported by a standard repatriation contract which is the subject to many exclusions. The basic contract does indeed work as a result of accident or sudden illness, where the insured would be evacuated if the medical issue could not be treated locally.

However, a responsible employer or mindful individual may also wish to be able to interven to organize a group or individual evacuation regardeless of medical conditions! For example, if the local military or health situation requires. This could be the case in some parts of the world, where many expatriates live at daily risk. Kidnapping risks in Algeria? Ebola in West Africa? Unrest in Syria? In this case, the security and crisis assistance contract gives access to different levels of alerts to the policyholder and the insured – evacuation is the ultimate stage triggered by the subscriber. A crisis can be locally and temporarily installed. Repatriation related expenses (airfare, etc.) are then billed to the subscriber. As part of a collective agreement, the annual premium will be less than 200 € per insured person.

Whether you are the Head of HR for your company expats, company CEO, or a concerned individual, contact us discreetly, for a personalized study. It may indeed be wise to consolidate, within the same platform, support services for all causes and benefit from insurance coverage to cover any-and-all such situations and enjoy the peace-of-mind that comes from knowing you’re covered. However, based on data from audits we conduct regularly (no charge!) on behalf of our exisiting clients show that many coverage areas are unnecessarily written into contracts or unnecessarily duplicative, bumping up insurance premiums. The services and advice of the broker are usually a source of savings for the customer!