Who pays for compulsory business travel insurance?

[Surelychorely64]

I have a question regarding who is reaponsible for paying for business travel insurance.

I work from home, but my job requires me to travel around the country visiting different depots or customer sites in order to fulfil my job role duties.

Twice a year the company I work for meets up at an international location for a week. These trips are compulsory to attend. Today management have made the decision to make business travel insurance compulsory when attending these meetups. They now want to see proof that you have purchased a business travel policy. However they won't be reimbursing us for this expenditure. I believe the company has liability insurance, but given during these international meeting they also conduct "team building exercises" such as playing sport or other physical activities. Activities that are part of the work day schedule. As such the management team have decided that staff must personally purchase their own additional business travel insurance.

I want to know if anyone has any advice on where I stand legally on this. I was always under the impression that if it is a workplace expense which is vital for the employee to perform their duties that the employeer is responsible for this expense.

My concern here is that my company doesn't have a HR representative so I'm not sure it this new policy is fair and legal so would love to hear from anyone who has any experience dealing with business travel insurance and who is responsible for paying for this additional expense.

Thanks in advance

It's definitely unfair - but illegal, it isn't. If you refuse to pay for business insurance they cannot force you to pay, and frankly I have never known an employer refuse business costs like this, but that isn't to say that some dodgy one won't try it on. In law it isn't the case that an employer must pay for any business costs - it is simp-ly what most employers do! There are tax claims that can be made by employees where they are providing business related expenses, but I have no idea where you would stand on this as it's so unusual. But I wouldn't be paying - I would say they pay or you don't travel abroad.

Travel related to the job inside the UK is generally covered by normal employee liability insurance, and if car insurance is required that is often either free (depending on your policy) or paid for by the employer. But as I said, there is no specific law that says employers must pay for these things.