Health insurance for expats living in Thailand is essential and can be a legal requirement for certain types of long-stay visas, regardless of how healthy you are today, unexpected illnesses and accidents are far more common than we would like to imagine, and that is when you’ll be grateful to have sufficient health insurance on your side.
Healthcare in Thailand is definitely renowned for its quality of care and generally for being very affordable in comparison to private healthcare in western countries. The caveat is that the best levels of care certainly aren’t free and unexpected medical expenses can quickly escalate beyond affordability, especially for lengthy overnight stays, chronic conditions and intensive care treatments.
Surgeries in popular Bangkok hospitals such as the Bumrungrad and Samitivej hospital in can cost anywhere between $10,000 to $50,000 USD+ depending on the type of procedure. Without having sufficient health insurance, these expenses can be financially crippling for most people.
Overnight stays for general procedures in international hospitals can easily run into the thousands of dollars.
Health insurance is not solely about providing you with the financial support to pay for the procedures but also gives peace of mind that you will have access to the necessary healthcare services when you most need them, without worrying about the financial burden.
We are too often made aware of uninsured expats finding themselves stranded in Thai hospitals while their families try to fundraise money to pay for urgent life saving treatments or to cover the cost of patient repatriation back to their home country.
In remote areas of Thailand where accidents are prone, local healthcare facilities are often limited and medical evacuations are required. Evacuation flights from islands such as Koh Samui and Phuket are taking place daily transporting patients to hospitals in Bangkok. You cannot fly on a regular flight if you are unconscious or in a critical condition and the cost of a short medical evacuation flight within Thailand can range anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 USD with costs increasing into the range of $100,000 to $200,000 USD for international air ambulance flights.
Caveats of health insurance plans from Thai insurers.
It might seem logical that since you are an expat living in Thailand that you should simply get covered by a local Thai insurance company or a local branch of a well known international insurer, most of the well known health insurers such as Cigna and Allianz are operating in Thailand, however they are only licensed to offer health insurance plans tailored for the local market.
It would be fair to say that local insurers generally have the lowest priced plans available. However being an expat you have more options available and variables to consider.
Every individuals situation is different, but there are some common deal breakers for us when comparing Thai health insurance plans with international plans and their coverage limits.
Local Thai health insurance plans generally have coverage limits of 1 or 2 million THB in comparison to International plans that often have coverage limits of 1 or 2 million USD.
Most local Thai health insurance plans will only provide coverage for medical treatments within Thailand, they are unlikely to cover medical repatriation to your home country or any type of medical treatments in third party countries.
Any injuries resulting from accidents involving motorcycles are often excluded from coverage in Thai health insurance plans, this exclusion is usually only found in the small-print of policy terms and conditions and not in the marketing materials.
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