Total Loss in Boat Insurance?

Lots of colleagues and clients are asking what is the total loss in boat insurance? What damage can claim 75 % of total loss ? How claims are paid? Market value or Insured value? Before I continue with this article you may need Average Boat Insurance Rates or How to choosing the right company for your boat insurance rates.

Total Loss 
ITC ( Institute Time Clauses - Hulls ) guarantee losses " Actual " total loss or " Constructive " total loss due to risks guaranteed in clause 6.

Actual Total Loss 
Actual Total Loss can claim if :

1. the ship has been destroyed or damaged ( destroyed ) ; or 
2. the insured can not have re- ship ( irretrievably deprived ) ; or 
3. The ship has been declared "lost " 

For example total loss in boat insurance, the burning boat to be destroyed , crushed , drowned can not be taken again , or declared missing after not found more than 6 months since his last voyage.

Constructive Total Loss
Ships can be claimed " Constructive Total Loss " if :

1. ( a) the insured can not have re- ship ( deprived ) and the estimated cost to get it back is greater than the value they will ship when it was saved .
2. ( b ) The vessel is damaged such that the cost of repairs is greater than the price of insurance ( insured value)  

As set forth in section 60 MIA ( 1906) for example, vessel sink ( can be taken ) , aground , sinking , fire, collision , but the cost of repairs and the cost to get it back is greater than the price of insurance ( insured value)

What damage can claim 75 % of Total Loss in Boat Insurance?
Pay attention to clause 19  ~ CONSTRUCTIVE TOTAL LOSS

19.1 ~ In ascertaining whether the vessel is a constructive total loss, the insured value shall be taken as the repaired value and nothing in respect of the damaged or break-up value of the vessel or wreck shall be taken into account.

19.2 ~ No claim for constructive total loss based upon the cost of recovery and/or repair of the vessel shall be recoverable hereunder unless such cost would exceed the insured value . In making this determination, only the cost relating to a single accident or sequence of damages arising from the same accident shall be taken into account.

So if the cost of repairs not exceed 100 % insured value , then it can not claim Constructive Total Loss. I hope the article What is a Total Loss in Boat Insurance could be useful.

Travel Insurance

About Travel Insurance

When planning a trip, nobody wants to think about what might go wrong, but the reality is that things can go wrong even with the most meticulously prepared trips. Flights can get cancelled; luggage can get lost; and injuries can occur. Do you have a plan for those less-than-perfect vacation moments?Let’s read more information through the follow content.Let‘s read more information through the follow content.thanks for your patient reading,let us move on.
To make sure your vacation isn’t completely derailed in case something does come up, you may want to consider purchasing a travel insurance policy. It’s a quick and inexpensive way to protect your family and your finances so you can enjoy your travels worry-free.

Package Plans

Package plans are popular among travelers because they bring several types of coverage together into one policy.
Package plans typically include:

• Medical coverage
• Emergency evacuation/repatriation of remains
• Accidental death and dismemberment coverage
• Last-minute trip cancellation (due to illness, inclement weather, etc.)
• Delayed or lost baggage insurance (including reimbursement for the replacement of essentials)
• Flight delay/cancellation insurance (If your travel plans are delayed for several hours, the insurance company will cover hotel accommodations and meals while you wait, and make new travel arrangements on your behalf)
• Trip interruption coverage (If inclement weather, illness, or injury cuts your trip short, you’ll be reimbursed for the unused portion of your trip)
• Replacement of travel documents, belongings and money that is lost or stolen
• Legal assistance
• 24-hour concierge service (to help you find medical care, change travel plans, etc.)

Package plans are typically purchased by:

• Those traveling abroad
• Purchasers of vacation packages (where large, non-refundable pre-payments are required)
• People going on a cruise (due to both the large, non-refundable pre-payments and the distance from medical care)
• Business travelers
• Senior travelers

Travel Medical Plans

Travel medical plans provide emergency assistance, medical coverage and emergency evacuation for those traveling abroad. In fact, these plans can be purchased for years for those who will be travelling abroad for extended periods of time.
Travel medical plans are typically purchased by:

• Students
• Expatriates
• Businessmen
• Individuals who will be traveling outside of their country and the reach of their health insurance

Other Travel Insurance Options to Consider:

Annual – If you travel several times throughout the year, it may be cheaper to purchase annual insurance rather than a separate policy for each trip. This insurance typically includes medical coverage, emergency evacuation, baggage loss, and accidental death and dismemberment coverage. It does not usually include trip cancellation coverage, though it may be possible to add it.
Student – If you are a student with plans to travel abroad, look into student insurance for travelers. Policies can be purchased for both short trips and extended stays (up to four years) and are tailored to meet student visa requirements.
Business – If you take frequent trips for work, consider business travel insurance. It can be purchased for a single trip or on an annual basis. Coverage extends beyond the normal  insurance limits to include reimbursement for canceled conferences and trade shows and reimbursement for lost or stolen laptops, exhibits, cell phones and other work-related items.

Do You Need It?

This type of insurance may seem like an extra until you consider the problems that could arise while you’re traveling. Consider these examples:

Problems that Can Come Up	Why You Need Travel Insurance
Your daughter comes down with the flu the day before you’re scheduled to depart on your family vacation	You need to get back the non-refundable money that you put into your trip
You’re injured while on a safari, and can’t get the care that you need where you’re at	You need help arranging a medical evacuation and help with the related expenses
You hurt your back while out site-seeing in Paris	You need help locating an English-speaking doctor
While in Peru your wallet and passport get stolen	You need emergency money and help replacing your passport and credit cards
A hurricane forces an evacuation of the beach you’re staying at	You need to get back the money for the unused portion of your trip, and you need help making travel arrangements
Your luggage is lost, and your prescription medication is inside it	You need help locating your luggage and help getting your prescription filled quickly
You make it to Hawaii, but your luggage doesn’t	You need help locating your luggage, money for necessities while you wait for it to be found and replacement money, if it can’t be found
You break your leg, and can no longer go on your white water rafting trip	You need to get back the non-refundable money that you put into your trip

Where to Buy Travel Insurance
This insurance can be purchased from a number of sources. These include:

• Your current insurance provider (for auto, life, etc.)
• Online brokers
• Travel agents

For help finding a reputable insurance provider, refer to the U.S. Travel Insurance Association website. They maintain a list of members that are in good standing.

Before You Buy Insurance

Before you invest in a policy, do a full review of your existing insurance coverage. Many homeowner’s policies include property loss protection and liability coverage that travels with you, while many credit card companies offer medical assistance and baggage loss protection to customers who charge their airfare to the card. You may even find that your health insurance provider covers overseas medical emergencies. Explore your existing coverage to see where you stand. Then, buy a policy that meets your travel needs.
Before you sign on the dotted line, be sure the policy meets your needs.
Many policies exclude:

• Pre-existing conditions
• Injuries caused by high-risk activities like skydiving or scuba diving
• Travel to high-risk countries (due to war, acts of terrorism or natural disaster)

What You Can and Should Want for Travel in the New Year

Name some travel metrics that you would like to see improved for this year. Ideas typically fall into categories like this:

• A specific way to measure savings for domestic, international, or overall travel.
• Online or overall travel program adoption.
• A better handle on hotel and car costs and averages.
• Meeting travel cost assessments.
• The results of supplier deals.
• A drill down on many other expenses like ground transportation (taxi, Uber, sedan, meals, etc.).
• Satisfaction with your travel program or its parts.
• The quality of data, for example, how often the right project or department code is provided.
• Compliance in a few key areas.  

Travel Management Companies have a wide range of travel data to share on these topics and can and do share it often. This is travel-rear-view-mirror data that can be used to set up a dashboard. While it may be important to you as the person in charge of travel, how is travel impacting other departments and how will travel be impacted by other departments?  You should think bigger and there is more that you may want to consider for this new year.

How can we bring better results to our organizations by adding a few of these considerations to our dashboards? Examples may include:

• How is your policy on cabin class effecting employee retention? Does HR know?
• How is travel anarchy effecting staffing time and costs in finance to manage expense reports and process credit card statements? How is this impacting them?
• Does the travel program and its policies and procedures fall into alignment with the culture of our organization for managing large line items like Travel & Expense?
• Where is travel going to reduce or increase based on our business plan for 2015?
• Will the sales team travel more or less?
• Are we completing one project and adding some that will effect demand? Are certain projects increasing or decreasing in demand?
• Will our team be traveling to riskier parts of the world, do we think that travel is riskier overall, or will travel to risky parts of the world decrease and what should we do to comply with our duty of care commitments to employees? Does legal think all of our processes and procedures comply with our risk tolerance for doing business?

So what will be important to travel and the company’s business plan for 2015? Which of all of these items belong in your dashboard? Let’s face it, we are all stretched and want to leverage our time by making the minimal investment to get the maximum return. So really assessing what can and should be in your dashboard can help leverage your time and deliver results that you can focus on for the maximum impact. Data is not better by the pound. Its quality over quantity. “Measuring what matters” can bring improved results for the new year!

What will be the most important data for you to measure this year?

What Does “Open Booking” Mean and How Will It Evolve in 2015?

In 2009 corporate booking tools were just starting to gain traction. Get There, Reardon, Cliqbook were the major players. Since then, these tools and concepts have matured and now some 40 plus percent of corporate travel bookings flow through online booking tools.  Concur has matured the technology to integrate expense management with travel management and is now a power player (they were recently purchased by SAP), who not long ago introduced the concept of “open booking”  the ability to manage travel while letting employees book where they prefer, but still capture all travel related expenses on a single platform. From what I see, the early hype around open booking hasn’t been matched by rapid adoption. So where will it go in 2015? Market research firm PhoCusWright predicts that open booking will gain momentum particularly in the Moderately Managed and Lightly Managed segments. I believe that PhoCusWright is spot-on with its prediction but that raises the all-important question: to what extent?

 

As someone who believes down to my very soul that Travel and Expense (T& ) needs to be managed and supervised even more than most top line items, the tools coming into the market can, will, and should help achieve this concept - not replace it. At its most basic level, I believe that organizations will embrace open booking if it can help them effectively manage travel, with greater flexibility and at a lower cost. The value of these tools all starts with good data. For managed travel to work, we must first solve the challenge of full data capture. If employees are occasionally allowed to book through any channel they prefer, there must be a way to bring all of that data together in a consistent, real-time format.

Current popular solutions rely on travelers to forward their confirmation emails via alternate sources to a data aggregator, like True Trip or Trip Link (solutions associated with TripCase and Concur). These emails are then parsed and converted into useful data for reporting and other purposes. I believe that 10% of the lightly to moderately managed market will pay to subscribe to these tools. When they do, and they get everyone to forward emails to it, the evaluation can then begin. The travel manager can determine if they have in fact found a better value (as they often claim), where all travelers are, if they have gone outside of their TMC for a legitimate reason you can approve in your travel policy moving forward, if and when preferred supplier agreement should have been used, etc. Together with their TMC, some of these customers will consider this enhancement and work through these types of evaluations if they choose to manage travel at a higher level.

By nature, organizations considering open booking will tend to have more relaxed cultures. However, that doesn’t mean that they want a T&E free-for-all. Open booking solutions can provide support in this area if these tools are used and under the intent of even more tightly managed travel.

Note: Challenges exist and in a future article we will address how these and new technologies and methodologies are beginning to address these issues. It’s no surprise that this method has gaps that include: road warriors not forwarding their emails to these data aggregators, preferred supplier agreements cannot be used or credited when travelers book outside a managed system, how to support these reservations not made by the TMC - even if the TMC can see them, they don’t own them so making changes, cancelling, and receiving updates to flight changes and other services provided by your TMC have to be a more manual process - and how to measure the impact of time when travelers go outside the system to report on and reimburse these expenses.

Insights into the Job of the Travel Manager

I am often asked by executives what Travel Managers do as they have never seen one. The study, “A Day in The Life: The Role of Travel Managers,” sponsored by Sabre Travel Network, surveyed more than 700 North American and European Travel Managers and looked at the role of the Travel Manager, the value these managers bring to their organizations and a potential evolution in their role in the near future. I felt this data was useful in explain what someone in charge of this sizeable line items does and how some of these objectives could be built into the job description of someone who does this full or part time. This data can also be useful in setting goals for someone in this role.

When asked about their current responsibilities, the study showed Travel Managers are pulled in many different directions.  The vast majority of Travel Managers cited procurement-related activities (e.g., evaluating and negotiating with preferred travel service providers and obtaining and managing contracts with their providers) among their daily tasks. Travel Managers also are frequently responsible for activities related to managing internal and external stakeholder relationships, developing and monitoring programs and policies, as well as other areas such as evaluating technology solutions and applying business analytics. 

 

“As it’s done in so many industries already, technology will transform the role of the Travel Manager over the next few years,” said GBTA Vice President of Research Joseph Bates. “Thanks to the automation of so many processes, Travel Managers will be able to expand their role and further demonstrate their value.” 

 

“New software and services are rapidly changing the way companies manage all procurement categories, and travel is no exception,” said Greg Webb, President of Sabre Travel Network. “Strategically-minded travel managers are achieving superior results by using more sophisticated technology and hiring more tech-savvy team members. We see this shift in the research and among our clients.”   

 

Additional key highlights of the report’s findings:

 

Travel policy compliance represents the biggest challenge for Travel Managers, both in ensuring that the travelers follow company policy as well as obtaining senior leadership buy-in for new policies. Additional common problems include keeping costs down, managing globalization, using data to direct decision-making, and keeping up with technology advancements available for travel.

 

In addition to technology, Travel Managers also expect to see an increased reliance on data and analytics to make decisions, further globalization of travel programs and an increased focus on safety and security in the next three to five years.

 

While the majority of Travel Managers are currently being asked to calculate company savings from having a managed travel program, quantifying it has proven difficult. Quantifying company savings, both financial and non-financial, stands to further showcase the value Travel Managers bring to their organizations.

7 Questions to Ask Before you Loosen the Reigns on Travel

There has been buzz recently in the world of corporate travel management. Studies show that more employees are “going rogue”. And while travel managers know this isn’t a good thing, they often lack the data to make the case for a more managed program. Millennial workers spend more freely and travel spend is a costly line item. Should you let them spend freely or not? Adopting a completely ‘unmanaged’ travel policy can be fiscally irresponsible as major value can be found in managed travel solutions: negotiated rates, duty of care, customer service, policy enforcement delivering better value, and data aggregation speeding reimbursement. Before you consider loosening the reigns, here are seven things to ask:
 

1.      What is your company culture on the subject of the procurement of anything? From travel to computers to office suppliers. Do you let people do whatever they want?

2.      Do your employees already do a good job managing their travel? Most companies I visit who don’t manage travel well don’t know this answer. Comparing your results against national averages or other companies like yours or even comparing the results of those inside and outside your travel procurement system can help determine the opportunity to make a systemic change or not.

3.      Does your travel volume justify preferred supplier agreements that can be leveraged for air, hotel, car and more? You may be leaving substantial dollars on the table by not having such a program.

4.      Have you evaluated the risks of not knowing where all of your people are at all times and not having support systems in place to ensure a level of “duty of care”? You want to keep all of your people safe from medical, security, legal, reputational and travel risk.

5.      Do your employees very clearly understand what the best value means to your company - or just themselves? Clarifying what the best value means makes a big difference. It may also vary per project they are working on. The best nonstop, best price out of their favorite airport, best value on their favorite airline, etc. Defining these expectations with reasonable thresholds in your travel policy makes a big difference.

6.      Does booking outside of a TMC cost your company more time to process expenses, budget, reconcile the credit card, get reimbursed etc.? Consider all of the costs.

7.      What is the cost of change? Business trips change often; personal trips do not. When changes happen, employees may have to spend more time away from their real duties getting routed or changed, change fees and cancellation costs unnecessarily appear in your budget, delays and changes make your people less productive at work as they arrive late for meetings. The right support could improve productivity of those traveling.

 

Many times travelers don’t see the value of your system to manage travel. Defining what it should be and reporting the opportunities and results can justify such a process

Improve These Four Things to Save Big on Travel in 2015

I see a lot of articles, especially around this time of year, about how to save money on travel. They often suggest a certain website, a certain day to book, and other creative approaches. While I don’t dismiss all of these thoughts, these articles are often geared toward individual travelers. In my experience, the best way to get savings results for organizations is by doing some basic blocking and tackling. If you simply focus on these four things and manage them extremely well within your travel program, you will get the best value.
 

1.      Leverage Deals. Most companies can have some sort of preferred supplier program. It may be a car deal, airline rewards program for the company, a contractual discount, or hotel agreements with your most frequented properties. Knowing what you spend, using the data to ensure you have the best deals with the right suppliers (a good account manager from a TMC should help you), and directing your people to those deals in all the right situations will help you win.

2.      Expand considerations. Three things should be of concern: (1) Not every site delivers all potential suppliers and fares; (2) Some are set to be wildly biased to their preferred suppliers; (3) Some sites are wildly biased to the traveler - it knows what the traveler likes and pushes that to him/her in a way that makes it hard for them to consider everything they should. Yikes. Make sure you direct travelers to a unbiased tool or tool that is biased to the company’s preferred suppliers. Not doing so will drive costs up.

3.      Enforce policy. Most organizations direct their travelers to fly coach, except in a few extraordinary circumstances. Do you dictate which coach fare? For example, should the traveler take the full coach ticket to LA for $1,200 or the same basic routing for $285? Policies so often fall short in defining thresholds over which travelers should consider other options. An alternate airport or time, a connection, or the travelers non-preferred airline may need to all be considered. Your culture should respect convenience but within some reasonable limits that are well defined. Call it, name it, police it (see below).

4.      Pre Trip. If and when- and it will happen- someone wants a fare that is outside the value policy the company put in place, have a system to say yes or no with the right data to make the right decision. TMCs have people and automation to make this happen.

 

Do these well and make the most of your travel dollars. Work with your team to make the right decisions to enforce so you have the data and buy-in that makes it work.

 

To learn more about how to get the best value on your Travel and Expense, register today for our March 5 webinar entitled:  A travel insiders guide to getting the best T&E value in 2015.

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If You’re Budgeting For Travel Costs In 2015, Go For Neutral To Singe Digit Increases Across All Regions

American Express Global Business Travel released its 2015 pricing outlook last week. In the outlook, Amex forecasts worldwide air, hotel and rental car pricing "to be neutral to slightly higher across all regions," with variance across geographic markets and supplier categories. On tap for the United States are low-to-mid-single-digit percentage increases in each of the three major travel supplier categories. Europe, meanwhile, will see a mix of increases and decreases. Asia pricing should be up, but at a slower growth rate compared with recent years, while Latin America projections range from modest declines to modest gains. Amex cited an "improving economy" and "capacity discipline" by airlines in North America as it projected airfares in the region would rise across the board next year: Short-haul business-class fares are projected to grow year over year between 2 percent and 6 percent, long-haul business class will be up between 1 percent and 4 percent, short-haul economy is projected to increase between 2 percent and 5 percent and long-haul economy should be up no more than 3 percent.

North American hotel rates, meanwhile, are projected to be "buoyed by favorable economic growth, increasing demand, and a lack of new inventory," according to Amex. "After an extended period of relative weakness, hotels are looking to capitalize on favorable market dynamics to increase profitability." In North America, average mid-range hotel rates are expected to increase up to 6 percent year over year, with upper-tier rates up between 3.5 percent and 7 percent from 2014 levels. Car rental base rate growth in North America should be more modest, rising no more than 1 percent, according to Amex, which added that it is "likely that rental companies will work with their customers to keep their corporate rates generally flat next year."

For more information, guidance, or a deeper dive into data for planning, let us know how we can help.

Are You Managing Travel or Managing Trips or Both?

“Begin with the end in mind” is one of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This should be the mantra for any major initiative. In travel procurement we often run into organizations who focus on managing travel (the line item) because the buyer of travel is driving the decisions. That person is often the Travel Manager, CFO, or similar. In other instances the decision of what to do (or more often what not to do) is based on the end user, or the travelers. In my experience exponential value is created when we are working with an organization trying to find the ying and yang (balance) between benefits that the organization should want and expect in managing T&E, and benefits that travelers should want and expect. Make sure you know what both sides can expect and add that to what you should expect to determine your goals and objectives with balance and consideration for both sides. It’s a good time for an assessment for the coming year. Then in understanding the potential and this desire for balance, filter requests and comments through these objectives before making any decisions. Here are some examples:

 

• Supplier display and speed - Many public travel sites recognize what the traveler has bought before and limit the display to what the traveler is likely to buy again. That’s a happier and quicker experience for the traveler, but does your organization want the buying decision to be strictly the preference of the traveler or the best available unbiased options every time?
• Traveler Tracking- I have heard travelers say that they don’t really want people to know where they are all the time. I have seen lawyers for companies explain that knowing where their travelers are all the time is a corporate responsibility.
• User interface- Many times advertisements for cruises, tours, packages, offers, and other products make sites look more exciting and user friendly, but are these advertisements simply distractions to your corporate travel policies? Yeah sure business travel buying technologies do need some updating but so does your CRM and ERP. These are all tools focusing on the job at hand versus an experience. What is important?
• Supplier preference- Is it the travelers preference that is the driver or the organization’s preference for the greater good of all that should be driver of the buying decision?

As in anything balance is required.

Why Your Superhero Road Warriors Need a Sidekick

Many travelers feel that they can make travel arrangements on their own outside of the company system just as well as the travel provider. Sure, making travel arrangements isn't difficult but by making these arrangements through a Travel Management Company they receive sidekicks (Batman has Robin and the Butler) that will help them defeat evil villains like Money-Waster, Time Cruncher, Plan Changer, Control Resister. Here are a few things they can do when they have such a sidekick that are good reminders of the benefits to them of working within your travel procurement system (Batman always did what was good for Gotham and him):

• Leap tall supplier cancellations and changes with a single phone call. 
• Leave you to do your job fighting villains versus the menial tasks of shopping for the right reservations, changing reservations, expensing reservations, and more. 
• Jump into battle with someone covering your back and providing you with useful data to accomplish your task. 
• Confirm your decisions making sure its good for you, Gotham, and the Butler.
• Maintain your secret identity by making sure only the right people know who you are with data security control you can understand.
• Ensure the data you need to fight your battle comes from every source in an unbiased fashion.
• Get you upgraded when appropriate with the right cool tools and equipment like a bat car versus a compact.
• Provide the right seats so that you are rested and ready to jump into battle.  

Even Batman needed Robin and the Butler - and they were always by his side when things went awry. Don’t be a Joker.

5 Advantages Gained by Establishing a Centralized Billing Program with a Credit Card Company

Saving time and money is the key to travel procurement and while other more expensive solutions exist to automate all T&E expenses, this is a very good first step in capturing more travel data with actual spend versus simply booked spend.

1. Gain Efficiencies with a Card-less Solution. Save your travelers from having to pay out of pocket and simplify your company’s payment and reimbursement processes by allowing these expenses to be on a company card. With less credit cards in use, less changes to numbers and expiration dates saves time.
2. Gain control and visibility over more travel spend. Have more complete data on spend including air, hotel, car rental and rail costs. Effectively monitor and manage traveler’s expenses by consolidating virtually all your travel expenditures into one account, one bill, and one payment. Ensure preferred supplier and travel policy compliance, access spend data that is meaningful to your company and improve spend visibility to assist with supplier negotiations.
3. Reduce traveler responsibility for payment without issuing cards. Travelers do not have to use their cards for a large portion of travel and this service can be provided without issuing cards for travelers. This can be especially useful when you have contractor and other non-employee types requiring payment for travel. This system can be combined with a program that includes the issuance of cards for certain employee types.
4. Provide Travelers With Access to Benefits. Many of these programs offer enhanced business travel accident insurance, baggage insurance, and some 24-hour emergency service. Points can also be a benefit.
5. Streamline Reconciliation. Account Reconciliation systems enable you to streamline and reduce the reconciliation cycle by days or weeks. It can be configured to the requirements of your financial systems to lessen IT programming time and costs. You can even have the capability to reconcile transactions and edit multiple transactions in a single step. You can enhance individual BTA transactions with your organization’s HR data. Allocate transactions to the appropriate cost center through account code validation. Save time by not having to request and receive missing data.

There are many ways to process travel payments and many times of cards and brands of issuers. Seek a consultation on the options and time and money can be saved while helping travelers facilitate the payment of this significant line item.

What is Ethical when it Comes to Making Travel Arrangements? 7 Tips to Keep Your Organization from Going from DIY to DIFM

What is ethical when it comes to using company paid expenses to enhance personal gains? What is ethical when it comes to taking personal gains when negotiating with suppliers? Company culture, standards, policies, training, HR, and legal responsibilities come into play when establishing policies on items like this - and travel is no exception.

The government asks its contractors to report any gains a company may get from suppliers for expenses paid for by the government. It wants to be aware. In a recent article from PCMA’s Convene Magazine, ethics was discussed in regard to what a meeting planner should and should not accept when in negotiation with hotels while planning a major event. It also suggested that policies on such matters should be clear and in writing.

Do these ethics and your culture get considered when booking travel? Are these standards in writing? It may seem insignificant to you that a traveler wants to go to their favorite website to book travel to maximize miles and influence, use their personal card for these charges to also gain miles and influence (while slowing down the expense process), and the same with their hotel and car expenses regardless of what is in the greater good of the company paying for these expenses. The cost of these items is significant when your company purchases many trips if complete travel anarchy is in place. Plus, there is a want to find out the impact.

Here are a few keys here that are important to consider:

1. Some of this influence is important and should be respected as travel is hard on road warriors. Business travel should respect the company and traveler.
2. There are surely thresholds under which would want to let employees make the call to support their preferred supplier and over which approval should be sought.
3. If you have preferred suppliers as a company, make sure people support them and explain why it is important to do so.
4. The extra time it may take to process expenses or make changes or support the traveler in case of emergency should be considered.
5. Your policy should address what is ethical and in the best interest of the company and why and people should be trained to it.
6. Travel should be booked in one place so you can monitor adherence and justify or quantify the decisions made.
7. This process and these policies should follow your culture, should comply with other HR functions, should consider what business you are in, and should be run by legal.

If before you know it, anarchy in travel spread to computer purchases, health insurance, and even office supplies, you end up with a DIFM (do it for me) versus what seems like a simple DIY (do it yourself) philosophy.

Six Ways to Determine if You Should Rein in Your Rogue Travelers

Millennials often shun the concept of a centralized managed travel system. They have come to learn that they know a lot more about technology than many of their more senior associates managing line items like this and they think that simply by technology access they can do it better. Most claim they are doing it to save money but more often than not proof of that result is not always available to those who hope to keep an eye on this significant line item. I would also mention that for years travelers have claimed they could do it better themselves even when they had to call multiple airlines. In every analysis I have been involved in the results didn’t prove these travelers right because many had their own idea of what the best value was (many times that perception involved their preferred suppliers and not the company’s). Do not get me wrong, their intent was not malicious but they many times end up feeling complacent with going to their go to suppliers and they did not always consider all the options in an unbiased way. This has been my experience, anyway. There are six ways to evaluate and assess these rogue claims to determine the CBA of this behavior.

1.      Benchmark. Compare the rogue average airline ticket, hotel, and car spend over the course of the year to those that are complying. There are ways to capture rogue and complaint traveler data these data via expense reports, card data and more.

2.      Bias. Run a report of spend by traveler and look for supplier consistencies. Are they always on American? Does it seem their hotel selection complies with policy?

3.      Policy compliance. Look at how you define value in your travel policy and what travelers should select in your policy to determine if even when they book outside your system they are making good selections.

4.      Cancellation cost. Check to see how many trips these travelers cancel and if they are using up their unused non refundable tickets or if they are incurring hotel or car cancellation charges at rates over and above the others.

5.      Deals. Asses the volume of spend you are investing in different suppliers and ensure you couldn’t be securing a discount or benefit from these suppliers as a company by managing spend within your system. If you have deals like this you must consider what you may lose by not having travelers use these deals.

6.     Compliance/Legal. When people go rogue how do you know where they are and if they get hurt or make the wrong buying decisions would the law be by your side. A chat with you legal team may help clarify legal obligations and even business plan compliance obligations.

With these few consideration you can put a number on the cost benefit analysis of managed versus unmanaged travel and make the right decisions. In this life we all have to comply with many sensible rules for the greater good- taxes, health care requirements, traffic laws, workplace obligations, etc. Not everything can go rogue and in my experience and in most instances, T&E is not a place to go rogue and not only because of trip. It is not just about booking trips and it is also about managing travel – the line item.

Five Places to Secure Data About T&E That Can Uncover Treasures For This Sizeable Line Item

We work with many small and mid sized companies who are ready to get a handle on their T&E spend. Sure their people can book trips a variety of ways but how do you know that you agree with what they have selected and they haven’t left some significant opportunities on the table for the company’s budget? Many don’t. They have no idea what they spend in many of these expense categories and don’t know how they stack up to others or even those within their organization. As a result they cannot quantify their missed opportunities and they cannot define what the company should expect them to do when making choices for travel. And you don’t have to be the travel gestapo to spot check and clarify expectations for big savings. By making sure that the company’s and traveler’s desires are respected, big money can be saved, expense processing can be streamlined, the volume the company spends can be leveraged for deals, and support and emergency care can be enhanced.

Here is where you can find some of this data.

1. Travel Management Company. When you direct all travel to one travel management company (we all have online and call in booking opportunities if we are focused on the business travel marketplace) you can access what was booked, policy compliance data, lost opportunity data, spend by department or customer or person , available unused non refundable tickets, and more. If you are assigned an account manager and have a corporate agreement with your travel company also, most of us will even help you benchmark your travel spend to determine treasures.
2.  Credit Card. With one central card system you can have a great deal of the data mentioned above but you will see actual spend versus what was booked (what the agency has). In addition entertainment costs also come into play here also. The data from those who book outside of your travel system can also be secured if you make them use your card system at least so you can compare how they are doing as rogues versus managed travelers.
3. Expense Systems. Popular today are automated expense systems that are pre populated with booking data from your TMC’s bookings tools and data sent to it by your travelers. These systems too have extensive amounts of actual data in many T&E categories.
4. Itinerary Management Apps. Trip Case and Trip It for example have upgraded versions that allow companies to aggregate data for trips booked and sent to these apps for you to review.
5. General Ledger. If nothing else this data has to fall into your accounting system somehow and some way even if spreadsheet expense reports and rogue travel is your norm.

T&E is the second largest controllable cost for the average company and it makes me nervous when I hear companies don’t know what they spend and cant easily get this data. Its my experience that when data is collected and the opportunities are assessed, treasures can be found is easily managed places.

25 Transformations in 25 Years: Start Up Student Group Customer Requires Creativity to Make First Event Ever a Major Success

We recently had a customer sign up who had very specific guidelines for their student groups. They needed MacNair to find hotels that could accommodate 200 rooms per night with 3 beds per room (so, we would have to locate a hotel that would have 200 cots). A place that would tolerate a large student group, was accessible to the DC Armory (either walking distance from it or metro accessible), and one who would be flexible on deposit and payment dates as this was a startup organization who did not know the response its first event would receive. Cash flow was king. We leveraged systems we use to develop a first rate RFP, researched likely properties, and used preferred supplier relationships to uncover and cajole a few potential options in short notice. We (with the customer) performed site visits and negotiated a great price with the appropriate number of rooms under acceptable terms that also included an additional block for parents and breakfast included in the room rate.

The result was that the customer's first event ever was a smashing success even in inclement weather (we hand held many through transportation challenges that weekend). They have gone on to expand their events and with our support have multiple blocks around the country including a block at the sister hotel of the initial hotel who was happy to have them and us back with a good history and track record and more accurate RFP.

Change Fees and Buckets of Money Left on the Table with Unused Non Refundable Tickets and What to do About it

Business travelers change their tickets often. We know this. The current airfare structure also incentivizes companies and travelers to purchase non refundable tickets and the change fees to re use them are size able. As a company do you know how much you are leaving on the table by not maximizing the use if these non refundable tickets and the cost to exchange these tickets? Not only are the unused tickets money left on the table-or should I say with the airlines, but the change fees required to reuse these tickets are significant. Customers in the United States paid a total of 2.5 billion in cancellation fees in 2012 as per the bureau of transportation statistics. Cancellation fees have even increased from $150 to $200 in more recent years. The interesting thing is that this bureau of transportation statistics does not collect the amount of non refundable tickets go unused, but you should for your organization. To digress, I am not a proponent of more regulation but disclosure of this data seems logical and useful for companies that serve the vast public and use public facilities and services. 

So what can you do as a travel manager to understand this amount and change policies and behaviors to better leverage this sizeable investment? Travel Management Companies like MacNair Travel Management offer a reminder to use these tickets on their corporate online booking sites, we offer reporting of the unused tickets to travel managers, and the cost of exchanging tickets is readily available on travel management summary reports. So yes this is yet another reason to manage and consolidate travel if your volume and losses are a concern and are significant. 

Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate, has been pressing airlines to account for the amount that have gone unused. At least you can take on is responsibility for your organization and deliver even more value. Current open booking trends can make this process more complicated but in a managed program, it is easy to control.

25 Transformations in 25 Years: Local Association Needs an Online Travel Solution for Staff and Non Staff Travelers.

A local association customer of MacNair’s needed reporting, itineraries, and traveler information for both staff and repeat travelers (profiled) and one time travelers (non-profiled) who were booking travel on their online booking site. The association wanted to be able to put all travelers booking within their site (including the non-profiled) on their corporate card. Meeting planners needed to get all travelers on board with using MacNair and improve their online adoption. As a result, we created two separate travel sites – both paid for by the association - one for profiled and one for non-profiled travelers. On the profiled site, travelers’ data would get saved. For the non-profiled the traveler would be responsible for inputting their TSA information at the time of booking. A meeting link was setup for each individual site and the meeting planner was able to receive a copy of itineraries and reports for both groups.

As a result, the Meeting planners had the ability to track all travelers (profiled and non-profiled) and would receive itineraries on each. This enabled them to mandate the use of MacNair Travel for everyone and online adoption jumped up to 89%, reducing fees while policies and procedures were enforced with quality booking data and trends that reduced ticket costs by 18%.

Ebola Issue Brings up the Need for Risk Management

As I watched the plane bring the Ebola effected doctors back to the US I thought about the risks my customers take in sending their travelers abroad for business - and even when their executives travel to unique places for pleasure. I also thought about the risks that occur when traveling in the US and was reminded of the tour bus crashing into people in Manhattan.

I attended a business meeting recently where Europ Assistance (a global travel assistance provider) gave me some facts and insights on the subject. 63% of companies have no travel risk program in place. They don't feel it will happen, don’t know the legal liabilities, don't know where to start, and don’t know the costs of a potential incident. One incident can surely be much more than the cost of putting a travel risk mitigation system into place. Think about the reimbursable costs, the time and disruption to the traveler and company, and the legal costs. 87% of the time an issue takes place the employee sues the employer. Yes, you have a business travel accident policy but what exactly do these type of policies cover? Then you have to ask is this policy combined with training, education and the establishment of protocols ( hotlines, approvers, contact systems, portals, alert opportunities, training, and more). These items minimize the impact for the traveler, their family, and the company - and reduce legal challenges.

The top three components of a great travel risk program include:

1. Prevention- intelligence, pre-travel training, crisis planning.

2. Monitoring – tracking, alerts, medical monitoring, records sent from TMC to provider.
3. Response - 24/7 response, protocols, insurance.

There are many decisions to consider in advance. Direction is required and we partner with companies for solutions. MacNair is having an upcoming webinar on this subject next month. If you are interested in attending or having a direct discussion, like or comment on this blog post