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Crisis & Duty of Care 6 MIN READ

Duty of Care Beyond Insurance: What Your Employees Actually Need When Things Go Wrong

Your insurance covers the hospital bill. Who covers the first 60 minutes - the call, the coordination, the person who actually shows up?

GCS Team · Published: Aug 2026

A desk telephone and a notepad under a single light in an otherwise dark operations room at night.
32The desk at minute zero - a named person picking up before the queue ever forms.

80%

Business travelers facing disruption in 2025 [1]

53%

Facing an actual incident or emergency [1]

67%

Wanting more safety, support, and reassurance [1]

$9.8B → $22.6B

Duty-of-care market, 2025 to 2034 [2]

You have travel insurance. Your company probably has duty of care coverage through a major provider. If something goes wrong, you call the number on the card, file a claim, and the bill gets paid.

That's not duty of care. That's claims processing.

Duty of care is what happens between the moment something goes wrong and the moment the insurance kicks in. It's the 60 minutes where your traveler is in a hospital in a country where nobody speaks the language. It's the 3 AM call from a stuck executive at a closed border crossing. It's the delegation of 40 people stranded in the wrong city because a flight was cancelled.

Insurance pays for what happened. Duty of care is what happens next.

What the Numbers Actually Show

Zurich Insurance's 2026 research surveyed business travelers across 31 countries. The results should make every travel manager pause:

Business travel disruption (2025 data, published 2026)

Travelers facing disruption80%
Travelers facing an incident or emergency53%
Travelers wanting more support67%
Companies with a response planestimated<30%

Four in five business travelers experienced at least one disruption while traveling for work in 2025 [1]. More than half faced an actual incident or emergency - a medical event, a security situation, a missed connection that left them stranded. And 67% said they want more safety, support, and reassurance than they currently get.

The duty of care market - the segment responsible for keeping traveling employees safe - was valued at $9.8 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $22.6 billion by 2034 [2]. That growth reflects a simple truth: companies are spending more because the risk is real. But spending more on insurance doesn't reduce risk. It increases coverage.

The Gap Nobody Talks About

Insurance vs duty of care: what each covers

ScenarioMedical emergency abroadInsurance doesPays hospital billDuty of care doesCoordinates admission, translates, informs family, arranges repatriation
ScenarioFlight cancelled at 23:40Insurance doesMay cover rebookingDuty of care doesFinds the alternative, moves the driver, holds the hotel room
ScenarioBorder closureInsurance doesNot coveredDuty of care doesRe-cuts the route by land, sea, or neighbouring airport
ScenarioPassport lostInsurance doesMay cover replacementDuty of care doesEmbassy run, emergency document, place to wait
ScenarioSecurity situationInsurance doesMay cover evacuationDuty of care doesRe-plans movement around closures with licensed providers already on file
Scenario40 staff strandedInsurance doesMay cover costsDuty of care doesDispatches from one sheet with one number to call

Insurance is reactive. It responds to what happened. Duty of care is proactive. It handles what happens next. The two are not the same, and most companies have one but not the other.

What a Real Response Looks Like

The first 60 minutes of a crisis are not spent on the phone with an insurer. They're spent doing this:

The first hour (minutes from the call)

  1. +00Call answered by a person. No queue, no menu.
  2. +03Situation written to the file. A named person owns it.
  3. +15Two or three routes out priced, with times attached.
  4. +30Ground re-cut: cars moved, rooms held, drivers re-routed.
  5. +60Decision confirmed in writing. Family or office informed.

This is not a call center. This is a desk with a person who already has the file, the itinerary, the insurance details, the next-of-kin, and the preferred hospitals. The first 20 minutes of any crisis are spent collecting facts. For companies with a retained account, those facts are already on file - collected once, in daylight, before anything happens [3].

Why Most Companies Don't Have This

Most companies have travel insurance. Many have a TMC with "24/7 support." What they don't have is someone who owns the problem.

A TMC's 24/7 support is typically a call center. Your traveler calls a number, waits in a queue, explains their situation from scratch, and gets a ticket number. The agent on the other end has never heard of your traveler before. They don't know the itinerary, the hotel, the driver, or the company protocol. They start from zero.

Duty of care requires institutional knowledge. It requires someone who has read the file, knows the traveler, and can act without being briefed. That's not a call center. That's a desk.

The Cost of the Gap

Cost of not having a response plan (25-person company)

Executive strandedWithout: $4,000-8,000 · With: $500-1,500$500$8,000
Medical event abroadWithout: $15,000-50,000 · With: $2,000-8,000$2,000$50,000
Delegation stranded (40)Without: $20,000-60,000 · With: $5,000-12,000$5,000$60,000
Passport lost abroadWithout: $1,500-4,000 · With: $200-800$200$4,000

The "chaos markup" is real. When something goes wrong and there's no plan, you pay more for everything - last-minute flights, walk-up hotel rates, emergency car service, and the productivity lost while someone figures out what to do. The plan costs a fraction of the chaos.

What to Actually Build

If you're responsible for travelers and you don't have a crisis response plan, here's what matters:

  1. A named person who answers. Not a call center. Not a queue. A person who already has the file.
  2. Institutional knowledge on file. Next-of-kin, insurance, preferred hospitals, escalation contacts. Collected before the crisis, not during it.
  3. A written protocol. What happens at minute 0, minute 15, minute 60. Who is informed. What decisions are made.
  4. Pre-held resources. Air ambulance brokers, licensed security providers, embassy contacts. Sourced in daylight, not at 2 AM.
  5. One number. Your traveler, your assistant, your security team - everyone calls the same person. Not a different vendor for each problem.

The Bottom Line

Insurance is a financial product. Duty of care is an operational one. Your insurance pays the claim after the crisis. Duty of care is the 60 minutes that prevent the crisis from becoming a catastrophe.

If you're a wellbeing manager or travel manager reading this, the question isn't whether your company has insurance. It's whether anyone knows what happens in the first 60 minutes after something goes wrong.

GCS field deskWritten from the run sheet

Questions we get asked

What's the difference between travel insurance and duty of care?
Travel insurance pays claims after an incident - hospital bills, rebooking fees, evacuation costs. Duty of care is the operational response: who answers the call, who coordinates the response, who sits with your traveler until they're safe. Insurance is financial. Duty of care is operational. You need both.
Our TMC offers 24/7 support. Isn't that duty of care?
Most TMC support is a call center. Your traveler calls, waits in a queue, explains the situation from scratch. Duty of care requires institutional knowledge - someone who already knows the traveler, the itinerary, and the company protocol. A call center starts from zero. A duty desk starts from the file.
Do we need a retained account for crisis response?
No. The duty desk takes the call either way. But retained accounts have their medical, security, and next-of-kin details already on file - which removes the first 20 minutes of fact-collecting from any crisis. The difference between a call answered by someone with the file and a 60-minute scramble.
How much does a crisis response plan cost?
Less than one crisis. A single executive stranded abroad can cost $4,000-$8,000 without a plan. A coordinated response costs $500-$1,500. The annual cost of a retained ground operations account is a fraction of one avoided crisis.
What happens if our traveler is in a country where we don't have coverage?
The desk doesn't need local coverage - it needs local contacts. Air ambulance brokers, licensed security providers, embassy contacts, and vetted ground partners are pre-held on file. The response is coordinated from Tel Aviv, not from the country where the crisis happened.
Can we test our crisis response before something happens?
Yes. Send a test request at an unusual hour - 11 PM on a Tuesday or 6 AM on a Sunday. Measure the time to first response and the quality of the answer. If the first response is "please hold" or "can you provide your booking reference," you have a call center. If it's a person who already knows the situation, you have a desk.

Sources

  1. Business Travelers Want More Safety, Support and Reassurance, Zurich Insurance Group, Feb 2026. Survey of business travelers across 31 countries. 80% faced disruptions, 53% faced incidents or emergencies. zurich.com
  2. Duty of Care Travel Market Research Report 2034, Dataintelo, 2025. Market valuation of $9.8B in 2025 projected to $22.6B by 2034. dataintelo.com
  3. GCS operational data, 2026. Crisis response framework: first-hour timeline, retained account pre-held resources, duty desk answered 24/7 across 18 cities.

Figures last checked: August 2026

The desk

When was the last time you tested what happens when a traveler calls for help at 3 AM?

Book a free consultation. We'll review your current duty of care setup and show you exactly where the gaps are - before someone finds them for you.

Call +972 50-666-6444Eran.globalcs@gmail.com
GCS deskAnswered day or night · 24/7Every way to reach us
Where this is run from
Crisis & DisruptionCancellations, closures and medical events, taken off your hands.
Crisis & disruption
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