iPMI Global Speaks with Tim Whitsell, International Sales Director, IMG

In this interview, iPMI Global CEO Christopher Knight met with Tim Whitsell, International Sales Director at IMG, to discuss how his organization safeguards the horizon for offshore workers. Whitsell details how IMG balances the ethical responsibility of patient safety with cost efficiency, utilizing a network of over 45,000 physicians and integrating emerging technologies like AI and telemedicine to bridge the gap between remote oceans and world-class care. As the industry pushes into new frontiers like the Arctic, Whitsell offers a look at the future of medical logistics in the world's most hazardous environments.

Providing medical assistance and insurance to offshore industries—spanning oil, gas, and maritime sectors—requires a sophisticated synthesis of clinical expertise, logistical precision, and advanced technology. The sector is defined by its remote and hazardous nature, where operational profitability is inextricably linked to personnel safety and the "duty of care."

The current landscape is marked by volatile external factors, including geopolitical instability and climate-driven environmental disruptions. To navigate these, industry leaders are shifting toward integrated models that combine insurance with real-time assistance services. Key strategic pillars include the adoption of telemedicine and AI to bridge the gap between remote sites and specialized care, the implementation of bespoke risk-management protocols, and the development of agile supply chains capable of delivering critical medical supplies under extreme constraints. Looking forward, the industry is preparing for expansion into harsher environments like the Arctic while integrating wearables and AI-driven diagnostics to transition from reactive treatment to proactive wellness.

What are the unique challenges your company faces when providing medical services and insurance to offshore industries like oil, gas, and maritime? 

There are several unique logistical and operational challenges we face when providing medical services and insurance to offshore industries. An example of this is geopolitical circumstances causing challenges during medical evacuations. For instance, recent incidents in the Middle East forced us to navigate around rapidly changing aerospace restrictions, which impacted the cost, planning, and routing of emergency evacuations.

There have also been several unique environmental and local situations we have faced in recent years, such as wildfires forcing airports in Canada, California, and Greece to shut down, electrical outages in Spain and Portugal, a fire and electrical outage shutting down the Heathrow airport, worker strikes throughout Europe, and cybersecurity threats, like the CrowdStrike outage that significantly impacted airports and forced us to quickly adapt evacuation plans, even with patients already in the air.

Specific to the oil and gas sectors, activities are diverse and usually classified as Upstream (exploration and production), Midstream (transportation and storage), and Downstream (refining and distribution). All can be found ashore and in the maritime environment, and all require medical assistance support we provide.

The industry is highly regulated, safety aware, and often operates in remote and hazardous environments. Profitability is highly dependent on maintaining production. The duty holder on a rig, for example, has a responsibility for the safety of everyone working on that asset as well as its financial performance. Our medical and logistical teams are used to responding rapidly to events in these challenging environments, ensuring patient safety in the context of local operational constraints.

Specialized services like topside and diving support also require additional expertise. Members of our medical team have experience in areas such as saturation diving, hyperbaric lifeboats, and decompression and aeromedical retrieval. We work closely with specialist treatment centers to ensure proper evacuation and care in these unique circumstances.

How do you assess the specific needs of offshore workers when designing medical coverage and insurance products?

To accurately assess the needs of maritime workers, IMG works alongside offshore personnel staff and brokers during implementation to design custom protocols and bespoke services specific to the needs and risks of the client, which can include requirements for an employer’s “duty of care” to employees and cost control of medical and evacuation expenses. Adverse events also have the potential to disrupt business, damage people and property, and carry a reputational risk for the client. At IMG, our goal is to give our clients accurate, timely, and actionable information to best manage operational risks and support their business operations. We achieve this through health risk management, hazard and risk identification, and prevention and planning.

What differentiates your offerings from competitors in the offshore medical and insurance market? 

Since 1990, IMG has provided global insurance benefits and assistance services to millions of customers in nearly every country. We offer an easy-to-implement cross-border medical and travel assistance solution with localized, customer-focused decision making that efficiently meets our clients’ needs. IMG has a proven track record of delivering lifesaving, cost-effective care to some of the world’s most remote locations. Our expansive network of field case managers provides “boots on the ground” support to ensure an efficient, more manageable patient experience, and our assistance centers in the U.S. and UK, as well as our staff deployed around the world, are focused on making complex matters simple for clients, patients, and administrators.

It is also possible to leverage our best-in-class, private label, cross-border medical insurance plans, which can yield even more business value with an integrated insurance and assistance program. Choosing IMG provides clients with the sophistication, dependability, and service accountability they have come to expect from travel assistance partners, but without the fragmentation and administrative burden that often comes with outsized organizational overhead.

How does your organization balance profitability with the ethical responsibility of ensuring comprehensive medical and insurance coverage for offshore workers in hazardous environments?

IMG balances profitability with ethical responsibility by designing medical and insurance solutions that are both cost efficient and focused on patient safety, especially for offshore workers in hazardous environments. Understanding these environments in which a medical emergency might unfold is central to designing plans and assistance components for this sector. Our deep understanding of the resources required to effectively manage such complex cases allows us to design effective products with safety at their core.

Our team is comprised of both medical professionals who are focused on care and logisticians who are focused on coordination. We are careful not to silo these responsibilities, and through this approach, our team members work side-by-side to manage cases holistically in the best interest of our patients.

Underwriting plays a vital role in measuring risk and shaping coverage for offshore workers as well. Through the underwriting process, we can align financial responsibility with real-world needs to ensure our products remain both protective and effective.

Experience in responding to events in all regions of the world allows us to leverage a trusted provider network that delivers both clinical excellence and seamless cost containment. Our many years of experience allow us to deliver outstanding, ethical assistance that is inherently cost efficient. 

How do you ensure that your medical assistance services are tailored to meet the unique challenges and risks of the offshore oil, gas, and maritime sectors?

We ensure that our medical assistance services are tailored to meet the unique challenges of the offshore sectors through our decades of experience and our substantial provider network. As a leading carrier for maritime crew members for more than 35 years, we’ve developed custom protocols and built out network capabilities to best service this unique market. Through our proprietary International Provider Access network of more than 45,000 physicians and facilities, we are equipped to coordinate complex medical evacuations from remote and politically unstable locations around the world.

How do you handle risk assessment and management for clients operating in high-risk offshore environments?

To best handle risk assessment and management for clients operating in high-risk offshore environments, IMG has medical expertise and global resources capable of providing specialized advice and consultative services to these clients regarding operational risk management.

Our security assistance services are designed to provide critical and real-time information to mitigate security risk and help offshore employees avoid danger. Some of our security assistance services include traveler tracking, pandemic planning and response, and real-time alerts on safety, health, and political threats through our customizable mobile app.

In what ways do you ensure that the healthcare services you provide meet the regulatory requirements of multiple offshore jurisdictions?

Regulatory requirements for providing healthcare services vary widely around the world, but they generally focus on face-to-face clinical assessment and care provided directly on the oil and gas asset, whether that’s a rig, refinery, vessel, or similar site. While we do not currently support remote clinical facilities, we understand the importance of ensuring that local staff, capability, and practice are fully compliant with local regulations.

We routinely deploy medical professionals to remote locations and transfer patients aboard both commercial and air ambulance flights, which often pass through multiple jurisdictions. In these cases, we adhere to the most stringent requirements of those locations to deliver the highest level of clinical care. Additionally, we hold worldwide medical indemnification, regardless of how hazardous the environment, which requires us to operate to both US and UK standards, wherever care is being delivered.

How do emerging technologies, like telemedicine or AI, play a role in improving the healthcare services or insurance you offer to offshore companies?

Staying current with emerging technologies is a daily priority at IMG, especially given the rapid pace of innovation and the unique challenges of supporting offshore industries. The growing demand for telemedicine among patients in remote locations has led us to implement a solution with global prescription capabilities as part of the broader digital journey for our insured population.

We’ve also introduced new communication channels such as webchat and WhatsApp, which are ideal for individuals deployed in areas with limited connectivity, where Wi-Fi may be the only option.

We’ve also deployed a wide array of technology solutions to enhance the customer experience, such as SMS notifications to keep insureds updated on the status of claims and real-time claims adjudication that allows customers to receive outcomes within 15 minutes. We have integrated AI, machine learning, and large language models into our claims experience, keeping the claimant at the center while allowing our staff to focus on customer support.

In extremely remote environments where immediate evacuation is not possible, such as ships awaiting port access, we can provide medical support and access a variety of telemedical devices when available on board. Additionally, our cloud-based picture archiving and communication system (PACS) allows the secure exchange of patient imaging from anywhere with internet access, allowing our specialist physicians in the U.S. and UK to review and advise in real time.

What innovations are you currently exploring or implementing to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of offshore medical services and insurance?

One key initiative for IMG is the deployment of a virtual payment card system that allows funds to be immediately available to an insured who is onshore in a situation where direct billing with the provider isn’t possible, such as in rare situations where transportation cannot be prearranged or during a hospital stay where expenses need to be paid. Our staff will be able to issue a virtual, prefunded credit card within minutes, which customers can download to their digital wallets to pay for services online, over the phone, or in person as a contactless payment—helping to avoid any out-of-pocket expenses for the insured.

Additionally, our provider network team continuously works to identify the best local solutions around the world for cost containment. We do not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to managing costs, and instead, we tailor our strategy to each location, country, or region.

What are the logistical challenges of delivering medical services to remote offshore locations, and how do you overcome them? 

Delivering medical services to remote offshore locations presents a complex set of logistical challenges. Offshore rigs and vessels are often located hundreds of miles from the nearest medical facility, causing evacuations to take hours or even days, depending on weather conditions and transport availability. However, IMG’s direct vendor contracts provide priority access to critical transport and medical services, allowing us to move time-sensitive cases quickly.

On the other end of the spectrum, small, highly mobile yachts may be able to rapidly make port and offload patients but may require immediate air ambulance transfer due to limited local medical capabilities.

Larger vessels, such as cruise ships and tankers, are often only able to access deepwater harbors, thus prolonging the process of patient transfer ashore. During this time, IMG’s team can provide clinical support to the medics aboard the vessel. In extreme cases, we may be called upon to help coordinate the evacuation of a patient from a ship at sea using helicopter search and rescue capabilities. While this hazardous procedure is usually coordinated directly by the ship’s captain with one of the International Maritime Organization’s 13 global search and rescue regions, IMG has, on occasion, been involved in receiving patients ashore who have been winched from vessels in this manner.

To bridge the gap between offshore and onshore care, IMG also leverages international telemedicine partnerships, such as Teladoc, to connect offshore personnel with doctors and specialists worldwide. IMG maintains a global network of clinics, hospitals, and evacuation partners to provide the fastest coordination possible in the event of medical evacuations and referrals. Pre-arranging air ambulance services and emergency response protocols tailored to each client’s specific location and needs is yet another way we work to overcome the logistical challenges we face with offshore industries.

How do you manage the supply chain of medical supplies and equipment to offshore platforms and vessels, ensuring that they remain stocked and accessible in emergencies? 

Ensuring that medical supplies and equipment remain stocked and accessible to offshore platforms and vessels requires careful logistical planning. For the maritime sector, IMG is partnered with a third party who has an established logistical structure to provide medical equipment and medications to yachts and other vessels.

Further consideration must be given when we are asked to provide medications with specific cold chain requirements, such as vaccines. In these cases, we may have to employ specialist pharmacy providers who can ensure that the cold chain is not broken. In extreme cases, we have worked with various supportive government agencies to gain access to diplomatic bags in order to get vital medications into the hands of patients. In at least one case, IMG has even deployed one of our in-house nurses to actually hand-deliver porcine insulin to a patient near a country where it was not available for religious reasons.

While shipping and providing certain medical supplies and equipment to offshore industries can be complicated, IMG is committed to navigating such complexities.

With offshore operations continuing to grow and evolve, especially in regions like the Arctic or deepwater areas, what do you see as the next big challenge for offshore medical assistance, and how are you preparing for it? 

The next big challenge for offshore medical assistance in evolving regions like the Arctic and deepwater zones revolves around navigating extreme environmental conditions, logistical complexity, and the integration of advanced medical technologies in highly isolated settings.

At IMG, we are preparing by actively exploring expanded telemedicine capabilities and by discovering new ways to deliver medicine and emergency triage supplies, such as through strategic partnerships with third-party providers. Our goal is to ensure that even in the most extreme and inaccessible locations, offshore personnel can receive timely, high-quality medical assistance.

How do you see the future of offshore medical services and insurance evolving over the next 5-10 years, especially with changing regulations and emerging industry trends?

Over the next decade, offshore medical services and insurance are expected to undergo significant transformation driven by technology, climate change, workforce dynamics, and evolving risk profiles. Offshore and maritime industries will increase their usage of AI-assisted diagnostics. Wearables will continuously monitor various health metrics of crew members. We expect to see gamified wellness programs and AI-driven mental health check-ins integrated into offshore life over the next decade.