No matter where you are planning to move, selecting the best international health plan option for your family should be a top priority. Researching your options early will help you manage costs, ensure that you have adequate coverage and allow you to make the best medical choices for you and your family.
The first step is to determine how long you will be living abroad, what your current U.S. plan provides and what your anticipated needs will be in your new location. Start by contacting your current insurance provider to see if your existing coverage applies abroad. Then speak with your regular physician, who can help you develop a checklist of needed specialists and coverage items and provide you with your medical files.
If your current U.S. plan cannot be used abroad, then you will need to look at other options:
- Purchase an international health insurance plan
- Participate in your new country’s national health plan, if you are eligible
- Purchase a local health plan in your new country
We recently discussed these health insurance options with Brent Judge, the director of business development for the International Medical Group (IMG), to get his take.
Judge said the first step in choosing an international health insurance plan is to be honest with yourself about what your plans are going to be. Plan needs differ for those who will be abroad for an extended period of time versus someone who will be in another country for just a short time.
“If you are undecided about how long you will stay,” Judge said, “then perhaps a short-term solution such as travelers insurance may be best for you, initially. But if you will be a long-term expat, you should be considering an international medical insurance plan, especially one with a high deductible to help you save on monthly premiums, particularly if you are a younger expat.”
Compared with U.S. health insurance plans, international plans can be less expensive, unless you have a low deductible and supplemental insurance to cover things like disability, emergency evacuation and other special requirements.
We asked Judge if using your U.S. health insurance plan abroad is a realistic option. “Generally not,” he said. “The reason is that most U.S. insurers will either have time or geographic limitations on how that plan can be utilized outside of the country. The other thing to consider is that many of them are not set up administratively to handle claims that may come in with physician notes in a language other than English.”
If you are retiring abroad, you should know that Medicare does not extend beyond U.S. borders. Expats in Mexico, in particular, have been actively trying to extend Medicare coverage to that country, but have not yet been successful.
International health care plans typically provide the same core benefits as U.S. plans: outpatient/inpatient treatment, emergency room, wellness, doctor visits and prescription drug coverage. In addition, most international plans include benefits for emergency evacuations and repatriations.
“We have a global medical insurance plan that is available to both individuals and families,” Judge said. “Four different benefit levels can be selected, which also contain a number of variables. It is based on age but also based on the amount of coverage that you want between those levels. The gold level plan is our most popular, which provides access to medical care privately anywhere in the world. Premiums are based on age, but our average premium is just under US$1,000.”
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