Episode 081: Before You Go: 5 Best Practices to Manage Risk in Short-Term Missions

Ken Hall

Jun 19, 2018

Ken Hall has incredible expertise in helping churches and Christian charities in risk management and insurance protection. In this episode Ken outlines some common risks involved in short-term missions and shares 5 best practices that can help churches, mission agencies, and teams manage risk.

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Ken Hall has been serving churches and Christian charitable organizations with helpful insurance programs over the past 30 years. With over 7000 client organizations currently insured, Ken has incredible expertise in helping Christian charities in risk management and insurance protection. Ken also serves on the steering committee of Plan To Protect – an abuse prevention plan for youth and children serving faith organizations.

In this Episode:

The information in this podcast is not intended to be specific legal or insurance advice. This episode is presented as a resource to help understand risk, insurance, and legal issues involved in short-term missions and to help identify and reduce foreseeable and preventable risks. Any short-term mission initiative will have particular realities that are unique to that situation. It is important that these risks and insurance requirements are specifically reviewed with the appropriate qualified insurance or legal professionals in your country, state or province.

Ken helps churches and charities in insurance and risk management. (03:07)
Ken presents seminars with the Canadian Council of Christian Charities (03:55)
The three main categories of risk are security, health and medical, and injury and liability. (05:03)
Ken suggests 5 best practices to manage risk in short-term missions. (09:55)
Best practice 1 is ensuring that all participants have effective emergency travel medical insurance. (10:22)
Best practice 2 is ensuring that all participants check with their own family physician to confirm that they are healthy enough to participate in the trip and do not have any pre-existing medical conditions that might prevent them from participating. (14:53)
Best practice 3 is a recommendation that participants be age of majority. There is extremely high duty of care, and legal and practical considerations that should be taken into account if considering including minors on mission trips. (18:11)
Best practice 4 is ensuring that participants sign an informed consent that clearly discloses the specific medical, climate and personal safety risks associated with travel to the proposed destination(s). (23:23)
Robertson Hall Insurance offers some checklists that organizations could take to a lawyer for consultation. (26:42)
If minors are participating on a short-term mission, a parental permission component should be included (27:45)
Best practice 5 is that the sponsoring organization and trip leaders should check with their respective country’s government travel advisory and warnings websites. In Canada: Global Affairs Canada (GAC). In the United States: The State Department. (28:05)
Partner with agencies that already operate in the area to which you are travelling. (34:25)
Create a medical emergency response plan (MERP). (36:00)
Find out who is providing medical assistance. For example International SOS has thousands of physicians and nurses and resources worldwide. (36:49)
There are some specialized mission travel insurance products and services and consulting companies in the USA. For example through Brotherhood Mutual, Mission Safe, and I am Global. The organization Crisis Consulting International has security and crisis resources. (39:37)
To contact Ken, visit the Robertson Hall Insurance Website and Church and Charity Protection Plus, or call 1-800-640-0933. (40:42)
Related Episodes:
- Episode 024: Myths and Truths of Risk in Missions – Anna Hampton
- Episodes 068 to 071: Mini-series: How to Do Short-term Missions With Excellence