The situation no one plans for
If your people work far from home — long-haul drivers, construction and field-service crews, utility and sales teams, offshore and maritime rotations — there is a phone call every owner and HR lead dreads, and almost no company has a plan for it: an employee has died, hundreds of miles away, in a place nobody at your company knows.
What follows, for an unprepared employer, is roughly forty-eight hours of improvisation. Someone senior is on the phone with a grieving family, trying to sound steady. Someone else is searching for a funeral home in an unfamiliar town and asking what it costs to prepare a loved one and transport them home — a cost that can run up to $11,000 within the United States, and more than $40,000 if the death happens in another country. The bill is open-ended, the decisions are urgent, and the company usually feels it should pay. Meanwhile the whole workforce is watching how leadership handles the worst day in a colleague’s family’s life.
None of that has to be improvised. It can be arranged in advance, once, for a one-time $350 per person.
Who is actually responsible for bringing an employee home?
Most employers are surprised by the answer: in most cases, it isn’t written down anywhere. Generally, no federal law or FMCSA rule requires an employer or carrier to arrange or pay to bring a deceased employee home. A contract or a union collective bargaining agreement can say otherwise — many union agreements do — and every employer should know what its own agreements promise. But for most companies, there is no rule to follow, only a choice to make in the worst possible moment.
Today, that choice plays out unevenly. Some employers pay whatever it costs, without hesitation. Some cannot, or do not. Some families are helped by nonprofit organizations. And many families quietly make the arrangements and pay the bills themselves. The difference between those outcomes is rarely caring. It is whether anyone made an arrangement before the day arrived.
Two ways to make the arrangement
A Return Assured℠ membership is an individual’s own lifetime membership — one payment of $350, once, for life — and it is not insurance. Benefits are provided through APASI, which has provided travel assurance since 1994. If a member passes away more than 75 miles from their legal residence — the place they have lived for 180 or more days in the 12 months before death — anywhere in the world, one call at the time of death sets the whole journey home in motion.
There are two ways an employer can put that in place for its people:
1. Employer-paid. The company funds the one-time $350 membership for each participating employee. Each employee signs their own application — a membership cannot be completed on someone’s behalf or as a surprise, because the member’s own signature is what makes it theirs. And it is theirs: the membership belongs to the employee for life, and it stays with them if they change jobs. For most employers, that portability is a point in its favour, not a drawback — it is a genuine benefit you gave someone, not a policy that evaporates at the exit interview.
2. Voluntary. The company simply makes the membership available and pays nothing. Mention it at onboarding, bring it up at a safety meeting, include it during open-enrollment season alongside the other choices your people make for their families. Employees who want it enroll and pay individually. Your role is only to make sure the option crosses their path — which, for a driver or a rotation worker who has never been offered anything like it, is itself worth a great deal.
Either way, there is no annual renewal to manage and no per-trip paperwork. A one-time arrangement, made once, that holds for life.
What happens on the day
If the worst happens, here is the whole of it: the family makes one call to APASI, at the time of death — or anyone acting on the family’s behalf can make it. APASI then locates a licensed sending funeral home, transports your employee to it, prepares them for burial or cremation, arranges the transport home, and handles the documentation, including procuring death certificates and, for deaths overseas, consular services. For covered repatriation there are no caps on expense and no out-of-pocket costs for the family.
Notice what is not on that list: your company. Nobody in your office is coordinating funeral homes and transport across state lines. Your role shrinks to the part only you can do — showing up for the family, covering their shift, being human — while the logistics are handled by people who do this every day.
We have also written a guide that walks through this in more detail: what happens when an employee dies while traveling for work. Members of your team who spend their lives on the road may also recognise their own situation on our Long-Haul Drivers and Business Travelers pages.
The honest limits
We would rather state these plainly than have anyone discover them later:
- Family travel is not included. The membership brings the member home; it does not fly family members to the place of death or back.
- APASI must be called at the time of death. If a family arranges services on its own first, those services cannot be reimbursed, because all services must be provided through APASI.
- Timing matters. A membership bought while an employee is already away from home takes effect when they return home, for subsequent travel — which is why this belongs at onboarding, not after someone is already on the road.
- It is one specific protection. It does not replace life insurance, workers’ compensation, or anything else your people carry. It does the one job none of those do: it brings your person home. You can read the full detail on our What is Return Assured? page.
Members receive a certificate and two wallet ID cards, and a membership can be cancelled within 30 days of signing for a full refund.
Start with a conversation
If you would like to offer this to your team — employer-paid, voluntary, or a mix — the first step is a short conversation about how many people you have on the road and which model fits. Use the short form below and mention anything that would help us prepare, and we will contact you to talk it through. Individual employees who would rather arrange their own membership can start with the pre-enrollment form — no payment is taken on this website; after you submit it, we will contact you to confirm your details, have the application signed, and collect the one-time $350 fee. General questions are answered on our FAQ page.
Your people go out and do hard, distant work for your company. Making sure every one of them comes home — no matter what — is one of the most decent arrangements an employer can make.
Common questions
How much does it cost to cover an employee?
$350, once. A Return Assured membership is a one-time payment for a lifetime membership — there is no annual renewal and no per-trip charge. An employer can fund that $350 for each participating employee, or make the membership available on a voluntary basis and let employees pay individually at no cost to the company.
Is this insurance?
No. Return Assured is a lifetime membership, not insurance and not a group insurance plan. Benefits are provided through APASI, which has provided travel assurance since 1994. It covers one specific situation: if a member passes away more than 75 miles from their legal residence, APASI arranges and covers the preparation and transport home, with no caps on expense and no out-of-pocket costs for covered repatriation.
What happens to the membership if the employee leaves the company?
It goes with them. The membership is the individual’s own, for life, regardless of who paid the one-time fee — so an employer-paid membership remains the employee’s own protection for every trip they take afterward, in any job or in retirement.
Does the company have to arrange anything when an employee dies?
No. The family — or anyone acting on their behalf — makes one call to APASI at the time of death, and APASI handles the arrangements: locating a licensed sending funeral home, transport to it, preparation, transport home, and the documentation. The employer’s role is to support the family, not to coordinate the journey.
Can we make it available without paying for it?
Yes. That is the voluntary model: the company introduces the membership — at onboarding, a safety meeting, or open-enrollment season — and employees who want it enroll and pay the one-time $350 themselves. It costs the company nothing and still makes sure the option reaches people whose work keeps them far from home.
More questions: journeysecure.com/faq
Travel for you. Plan for them.