We’ve blogged about foreign legal document translations and litigating foreign language life insurance policies. We also blogged about multilingual translations of international pension fund materials. When a US company does business outside the US, they open themselves to risks that may or may not be covered by their US insurance. In fact, many domestic policies do not cover the exposures to lawsuits or employee injuries that can occur in a foreign country.
Not only are there the basic risks, such as employee injury (which may or may not be covered by a domestic carrier) but also some unique risks, such as kidnapping, extortion, serious illnesses, theft, and natural disasters, that are unique to foreign travel and thus are not likely covered by a domestic policy.
The first step is always to check with your domestic carrier to see what is and is not covered. However, much depends on the country you are doing business in and your insurance carrier is unlikely to know about foreign requirements. To find this out, it is important to obtain a foreign language translation of the laws of the country you’ll be doing business in. Many foreign laws require specific policies and extensions that are only available from an international carrier. In such cases, a contract must be entered into with a foreign insurance provider. And a foreign language translation of the contract’s terms will be needed as well.