Information About International Private Health Insurance
Where do you start looking for your private international medical insurance to provide for you, and your family whilst you are away from your home country.
International Insurance Companies
Many International Insurance companies advertise in Expat magazines and on the internet, you could try www.google.com and search for Expat Medical/Health Insurance, but any international insurance company that you contact will only tell you about their own plans which may not be suitable for your needs, and you will have to study the policy wording carefully, to find out what is covered and what is not covered.
Financial Advisor
If you have a financial adviser, he or she will probably get you a quote from BUPA, but is that policy going to cover your needs?
International Insurance Brokers
There is another way, by contacting a Specialist International Insurance Broker like Globalsurance. They are totally independent of any insurance company, they are fully informed about international health insurance and have agencies with all the leading international insurance companies. After receiving you enquiry form, Globalsurance will research the market for your specific requirements and send you a quotation for 3 or 4 different plans that suit your requirements. Globalsurance have already read the policy wording for you, and can answer any questions you may have.
Choosing a Country
Before choosing what country you want to live or work in it could be wise to check out the security of that country. You can do this at the UK Foreign Office at www.fco.gov.uk there is a lot of other useful information on this site.
You can check out the health amenities in any country at the World Health Organisation at www.who.org
Premiums
Many Expats want the cheapest possible policy, until they come to use the insurance and find it has limits as to how much it will pay, if at all. There are many different variables to arrive at the premium that you will pay.
Choosing a Plan
Firstly you should look at the benefits on offer and see if they cover what you require. Please bear in mind 85% of claims made to International Insurance Companies are for Out-patient related claims. Most international insurers cover In-patient treatment, but have limits for out patient claims.
Area of Cover
In general International insurance companies divide the world into 3 different areas:
Area 1: Europe (The cheapest area)
Area 2: Worldwide excluding USA and Canada
Area 3: Worldwide Including USA and Canada (The most expensive area)
Excess/Deductible
The excess/deductible is the first part you pay of any claim or some companies have an annual excess/deductible where as you pay the first bills up to an agreed amount and the insurer pays the rest. The higher the excess/deductible you elect to pay, the cheaper the premiums.
Co-Insurance
Some insurers impose Co-Insurance on some benefits. This means that the insurer will pay say 75% or 80% of the claim for some benefits and you the insured pay the other 20% or 25%. The reason is to keep the premiums down.
Cover Limits
The cover limits of policies vary greatly, for £25,000 per claim, up to an annual limit of up to £5 Million. Please remember some operation procedures in the USA can make a big hole into your cover limit, and even exceed the limits of some cover limits.
Chronic Conditions
Chronic Condition verses Acute Conditions. There are various definitions of the differences and this explanation does not seek to be an authoritative work dealing with the best definition of the difference.
However a working definition is that a chronic condition represents a health problem that persists through time requiring various degrees of ongoing health care. Any treatment can only alleviate the symptoms, as curative treatments have yet to be found,
An acute condition, on the other hand, is limited in time as the treatments provided have the potential to fully cure the ailment.
So conditions like arteriosclerosis, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, eczema, renal failure, obstructive lung disease, sarcoidosis, congestive heart failure, multiple sclerosis, leukaemia or cancers amongst many other health impairments are classified as chronic conditions and the treatment resulting from the maintenance of these conditions is therefore excluded under the terms of many international healthcare plans.
The cost of the premiums will be greatly reduced if you choose a healthcare plan with out the cover of chronic conditions.
However it is not such a good idea to exclude such conditions whilst living outside of the UK if there is no NHS to provide treatment in the circumstances. Where will the expatriate, or his/her family, obtain the funding for treatment if such conditions are excluded from their international health plan?
If you have a good employer they may decide to pay for your medical treatment but if you are retired you may have to sell up your dream home and return to the UK because you cannot afford the treatment you need.
The absence of chronic condition coverage also poses difficulties in respect of those conditions, which start life as acute, but which then progress to becoming chronic conditions. The most obvious example is a cancer where the oncologist initially anticipates a cure and applies treatment accordingly. Where this curative treatment proves to be unsuccessful, and the cancer then by definition becomes incurable, the condition description would move from acute to chronic. It is a clear but concerning fact that for a very significant percentage of people with international healthcare, this change in definition from acute to chronic would coincide with the removal of insurance cover.
Therefore, it does not take much imagination to visualise a situation where an insured member and his/her family is informed at more or less the same time that not only is the condition incurable, but also the patient is now on his own as far as the treatment costs are concerned.
Although health insurance is essentially a simple product - you get sick, the bills get paid; in practice the details of the scope of coverage from one insurer to another do warrant considerable analysis.
There is no discretionary buying decision required, you either have cover or you have to pay big bucks for treatment yourself.
HIV/AIDS
We would like to bring your attention to the most pressing health issue there is in the world today, which is the devastating epidemic of AIDS that is still killing, men, women and children all over the world at a fast and furious rate. It is clear that no amount of drugs will succeed in bringing this worldwide disaster under control - only prevention can do that and so far we do not seem to be winning the battle.
The African continent has the biggest problem in the world. For example, in Botswana, 39% of the adult population is infected with HIV / AIDS. If you think about the number of adults that live in your road and then think that 4 out of 10 would have HIV / AIDS, or maybe you work in an office that has 10 employees, 4 of those would have HIV / AIDS.
When travelling around the world one has to be very, very careful. The good news that AIDS is not highly infectious disease such as SARS or flu. It is not easily transmitted from carrier to recipient. Unless you are an infant exposed to an infected mother you have to work really quite hard to get AIDS, you don't get it from shaking hands, or drinking fountains, or toilet seats or breathing contaminated air. You have to do something deliberately to put yourself in harm's way and you can easily avoid infection by not having unprotected sex and not doing intravenous drugs.
It is estimated that 25% of the people that have HIV / AIDS, in America, actually do not know that they have it, because it can take some years for symptoms to show, therefore, those people could be unwittingly going around infecting the rest of the population.
We would recommend that whilst spending money on a private health insurance policy you consider choosing one that will cover chronic conditions not only HIV / AIDS but also diabetes and even arthritis.
If you would like further information regarding the plans we provide that cover chronic conditions please do not hesitate to contact us, at www.globalsurance.com
Underwriting
There are basically two different types of underwriting, fully medically underwritten or moratorium.
If you have a medical condition before taking out this insurance it will be classed as a pre-existing medical condition, and normally will not be covered.
Fully medically underwritten means that you will have to answer certain health questions and maybe even have to have a medical examination, and then an underwriter will access your health and may exclude certain medical conditions on a permanent basis.
Moratorium means that the insurer will ask fewer questions, because they will exclude any medical condition that you have had in the past 2 years, or any medical condition you have had medication for, but after you have been medication-free for 2 years, the insurer will then consider covering that condition.
Which form of underwriting you choose will depend upon your personal circumstances and professional advice will enable you to decide which is best for you.
International Assistance Companies
It is wise when choosing an International insurer that you make sure that they use a reputable International Assistance Company to handle all your medical needs.
Why? Because if you have a serious medical problem at 7.00pm GMT on a Saturday night it is no good telephoning the insurer back in England, as most of the staff will be in a bar somewhere, and the offices will be locked.
So? What is a International Assistance Company, it is a company that specialise in looking after insurance company members, they work 24hrs a day 365 days a year, with bi-lingual staff to answer your calls and to liaise with the medical team in which ever country you happen to be in, with fully trained doctors on call.
It is not possible for me to give information on all the companies in the market place, so I have chosen to talk about International SOS as a benchmark. International SOS, has offices in over 40 countries and are on 24-hour stand-by for your protection. With over 30 million clients on cover worldwide, International SOS prides itself on the dedication and professionalism of its staff. As a member of an insurance company that engages the services of International SOS, you have all the expertise of International SOS available to you, whatever your medical problem is and wherever you are in the world.
On calling your International Assistance Company they will ask you to identify yourself by your membership number, which will be supplied with your policy. Carry your card with you at all times; it is your lifeline in times of emergency. Members are strongly encouraged to contact their International Assistance Company for any medical concerns requiring care so that a doctor can provide a real-time assessment of their need and ensure referral to an appropriate medical provider in the members' location.
By using your International Assistance Company to make all the arrangements for you, they will arrange for you to be admitted to a "Centre of Medical Excellence" and arrange to pay all the medical bills direct, therefore you will not have to worry about whether you have enough credit on your credit card to meet the bills or not.
You should be able contact your International Assistance Company at any time for medical advice. If you are just beginning your new life as an Expatriate or are a long time expatriate and you wish to obtain medical treatment, your International Assistance Company should also keep your company informed of your progress as well as informing your family if required.
If, given the location of the world that you are in, it is found by the International Assistance Company doctors that your condition could be improved by relocating you to a medical centre best suited to your medical needs or in fact repatriating you to your home country, then all such arrangements will be made under your policy.
There is a positive correlation between quality-oriented global networks and effective healthcare. By helping to guide members to quality providers, members can be assured they will have access to quality care.
Because development and maintenance of a quality-oriented global network of quality providers is a substantial investment, many insurers still continue to resort to a static list. However making such an investment can bring significant benefits to the insurer, to multinational employers and most important of all, to expatriates and their families.
The combination of a good International Assistance Company and your insurance company will ensure that you have complete "Peace of Mind" for you and your family during your time as an Expatriate.
Globalsurance is an independent Worldwide Health Insurance Advisor. We work with all the major insurance company and can give you independent advice or a range of free International Health Insurance Quotes; click for Free Advice and Quotes.
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