How to choose your expat insurance provider
If you’re making a significant move abroad, you’ll need to find an expat health insurance provider who can cover all of your requirements. But what should you look out for when selecting international health insurance, particularly when you’re an expat living abroad? Read on for our helpful guide to choose the best provider for global health insurance, travel insurance and more.Understand how ASN helps you pick the best expat insurance provider for your needs
What difference do your details make?
Before you start scouring the internet for international medical insurance and more, you’ll first need to take stock of your particular needs and the services you’re looking for.
To book insurance for living and working abroad, you’ll need to consider your own details and their effect on your choice of provider.
We recommend considering:
1. Your health
What’s your health status like, and what will you likely need coverage for while you’re living in a different location? Your age and your existing medical history will affect the insurance plans you’ll need. Be honest with yourself about the coverage you’ll have to have - it’s better to be over-insured than to find yourself without coverage at a difficult time.
2. Your budget
Perhaps money is no object for you - but it’s likely that you have some sort of figure in mind for coverage and for the cost of your insurance. Your medical history might sway you to be cautious and purchase more comprehensive insurance, which is likely to cost more than a basic plan. Consider your budget and what you’re looking to pay for.
3. Your dependents
Expat insurance often needs to cover more than just you - it might need to cover your family as well. If you need to add dependents to your international health insurance, you’ll need to understand what their medical needs will likely be as well.
4. Your future home
There are factors outside of your own personal history that might affect what provider you use. For example, health problems you might need coverage for can vary, depending on which country of residence you choose. Your provider will need to be able to provide you with appropriate coverage for any location-specific health issues.
5. Your specific provider requirements
Would you feel more comfortable having a provider you can call up at any time to discuss your global medical insurance? Think about what kind of service you want from your provider, as it may affect which one you decide to use.
What should you look for when choosing your expat insurance provider?
There are several factors that can sway you from choosing one expat insurance provider over another. Here are our top factors that can affect which provider you choose:
1. Knowledge and expertise
How long has the expat insurance provider been operating? How well do they understand not only your insurance requirements, but the particular needs of an expat living and working abroad? Choosing a provider who has experience that is relevant to your specific needs will help you to avoid purchasing insurance that doesn’t suit you.
2. Reviews
The expat insurance provider you choose should be reputable, and have great reputationfrom others who have used their services. Ideally, you’re looking for a long-standing insurer that has a reputation for providing an excellent customer experience.
Alternatively, you can choose to use one of our support consultants, who provide decades of insight into choosing the best insurance provider for your particular needs at no additional cost to you.
3. Where they cover
If you’re an expat, you will need global medical insurance for new locations you’ve moved to. Your insurance provider should not only be familiar with these regions, but have developed deep connections with the healthcare facilities operating within that area. This ensures that you can access the best healthcare.
Particularly with health insurance with worldwide cover, you’ll need to know that your insurance provider has an agreement with multiple facilities within easy reach of your new location. You don’t want to be caught out when you most need support.
4. Communication style
How easily can you get in touch with your insurance provider? What language support can they offer you? The last thing you need when you want to use your international health insurance is to have a language barrier problem. Make sure your provider communicates in a way that works best for you.
5. Support offered
As an expat, you’re likely looking for multiple types of insurance. You could be looking at global medical insurance, international travel insurance, life insurance and more. You’ll need to find an expat insurance provider who can cover all your needs to avoid having to use multiple options. This reduces the amount of admin you’ll have to do and streamlines your paperwork significantly.
How ASN can help you select the best expat insurance provider
When you’re living and working abroad or planning for that eventuality, it can often become an overwhelming task to sort out your insurance options.
Searching for the right expat insurance provider, handling the paperwork, communicating with the provider and more can take up a lot of your precious time. Much of the useful information that might persuade you to choose a provider - their reaction time, their health service networks, language capabilities and more - can be difficult to find.
That’s why ASN helps you to manage all the complexities of your insurance sourcing and management, at no additional cost to you. You’re connected to a personal consultant to assist you in finding the right expat insurance provider for your needs..
You can expect:
- Policy set-up and administration
- Claims handling and processing
- Renewals and revisions handling
- Communication with the insurance provider
- Communication with the healthcare provider
- Payment guarantee
- In-depth knowledge and expertise
- Concierge-quality service and support
We’ll help you to put aside any worries about finding the right expat insurance provider and handle all the day-to-day administration of your policies. You can read more details on our full list of services here.
We’re here to support you in any way we can. Get in touch with us now if you’d like to find out more, or read our dedicated page to see more details.