Health insurance coverage
Do Expat Families Have Health Insurance? We're occasionally asked if we have health
insurance coverage
and how that works for a travelling family. To cut to the chase, yes we do, but we did quite a bit of research before finalizing our decision and finding the solution that was right for us. Technically Mickelle is a volunteer teacher at the LIFE School and I'm self-employed so we're on our own with regards to health insurance. We've met expats that don't have insurance and others that do. In the end it's a personal decision each individual or family needs to make based on risk tolerance, their current health, personal finances and other factors.
Pros of NOT Having Health Insurance You don't need a doctor's prescription for medicine. You just tell the pharmacist the name of the drug you are looking for and, assuming it's in stock, they'll sell it to you.
You save money each month because there are no premiums. Yes, you'll have to pay the full expenses for anything you need, but as I already mentioned, it's typically cheap. On the extreme end, we know a boy who contracted Typhoid Fever and the medications for his treatment were over $100. Even if something this unfortunate were to occur to my family once a month, it would still be cheaper than paying monthly premiums.
Cons of NOT Having Health Insurance While my Mom and our kids have received good care for very little money, they were not critically ill or injured. If they were, the costs would have been much higher and we'd potentially run the risk of making trade-offs on our healthcare or risk financial instability. If something really bad were to happen and you could not afford it, you might be putting an unintended burden on your close friends or family to help offset what you can't cover. Thus putting them at risk for financial instability as well. These cons are the reason we decided to purchase health insurance. Our thought process is that you don't need it, until you REALLY need it. Admittedly, this is not a universal feeling of ours, i.e. we don't have car insurance.
Health Insurance Options Getting health insurance as an expat is easy. You go online and buy it. The process is straightforward but just like buying any insurance there's more than one choice and you need to read the fine print in order to properly weigh your options. In general we are a healthy family. We stay active, the adults eat healthy (the kids eat like kids), and we rarely get sick. Because of this we knew that whatever insurance we purchased would rarely be used.
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