5 Useful Tips to Save Money
on International Health Insurance
5 Useful Tips to Save Money
on International Health Insurance
International health insurance, also known as expat or global health insurance, covers medical expenses for those who work, live, or study abroad. Expat health insurance can also cover individuals who simply spend a lot of time traveling outside of their home country.
Tenzing strongly recommends expat health insurance in order to prevent the significant financial losses that can result from life’s inevitable accidents and ailments.
Fortunately, international health insurance plans can be tailored to meet one’s specific needs and can cover a wide variety of geographical locations. Unfortunately, these services often come with a hefty price tag.
To help save time and reduce your health insurance premiums, let’s look at five ways to save money on your expat health insurance plan.
1. Pay Annually Rather Than Monthly
Some international insurance providers allow customers to spread out payments in monthly, quarterly or semi-annual installments. In most instances, there is a fee for this privilege, up to 10%. A single annual transaction can save you lots, if your cash flow situation allows for it.
Additionally, making an annual payment at the beginning of the policy year can help reduce the risk of not being covered if you miss a payment on your policy. Annual payments are great – you pay it once and can then forget about it until the next year.
2. Select Only Inpatient Coverage
Another element of a cheaper, consumer-directed health plan can be to forgo outpatient coverage and insure only for major accidents and illnesses that require hospitalization.
Generally, an international health insurance policy can include many optional benefit add-ons, such as:
- Basic outpatient services
- Comprehensive outpatient
- Dental
- Vision
- Maternity
While a plan with comprehensive benefits is nice to have, for many, it’s not an effective way to save money on expat health insurance. Here in Southeast Asia, the cost of many outpatient services is relatively low, which leads some consumers to decide to self-insure for the small stuff while maintaining a solid inpatient policy for anything significant.
Read more in the article about Inpatient vs Outpatient benefits.
3. Choose a Big Deductible
First, some terminology:
A deductible (also known as an excess) is an amount of money one pays annually out-of-pocket before the insurer begins to cover your medical expenses.
A premium is simply the cost of the policy, whether paid annually or in installments.
A policy with a large deductible can lower your premium significantly. Such plans are also known as high deductible plans, or consumer-directed health plans, or catastrophic coverage. For example, a very good inpatient-only policy for a healthy 37-year-old will cost about $1,388 without a deductible, but a $5,000 deductible effectively halves the premium to $694. Make no mistake, the savings mean no coverage at all until you pay the deductible, but you shouldn’t expect to have a need for inpatient coverage during most years.
4. Beware of Companies that Provide Cheap Expat Health Insurance
The health insurance industry can be tricky to navigate. Which providers are reliable? Do they truly cover what they claim to cover? How do they handle big claims?
Similar to anything else in life, you generally get what you pay for. Choosing a cheaper plan may save you money on your premiums, but it can also end up costing you more if you have a significant medical issue. Generally speaking, if a quote seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Before making a choice, we suggest you find out whether the company:
- Employs a customer service team that speaks your language and actually solves problems
- Has a solid direct billing network that consistently works
- Imposes reasonable claims documentation requirements
- Actually pays out big claims
- Bases its annual premium increases on everyone’s claims history, not just yours
- always allows you to renew your policy
5. Engage a Health Insurance Agent
To avoid buying inadequate health insurance, use an agent or broker. Do your research in choosing one – check their Google and Facebook reviews, talk to friends and associates, examine their website thoroughly.
A solid insurance agent should be readily able to answer the questions above and show you lots of policy options from a range of insurance providers. Beware the agent that sells only one company’s products – they are inherently unable to provide unbiased advice.
Some of these approaches may work for you, others may not. There may be other ways you can save money. One big takeaway is that health insurance is complicated, with lots of moving parts, some of which can be swapped out, replaced, or thrown away. Just be sure you understand that the end product meets your particular needs.
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