Read the transcript:
Welcome
Andrew Blomberg:
Good morning.
Megan Raftery:
Good morning. I have 11 o'clock Eastern time right now. Good morning everyone or good afternoon. My name is Megan and I am the director of marketing at International Citizens Group I'm so pleased to welcome you today and see so many people in attendance. It's appreciated and I know your time is valuable. Before I introduce our guest speaker I'd like to review a few technical things. At any time during the presentation if you have questions, please put them in the chat. I can see people are already using the chat. So good morning, Jeff and Brianna. I will be monitoring that and we'll respond if there's any type of technical issue. If it's a question for a presenter, I will hold it until the end. Also, we are recording this session, I will send out a copy of this later today or tomorrow, depending on when it's done.
Megan Raftery:
Keep an eye on that in your inbox. And with that, I would like to introduce Andrew Blomberg. He is the director of sales at International Citizens Insurance. Andrew has been in the insurance industry for eight years and has been with this company for over four years. He has extensive knowledge in the industry and works with his clients on finding the best insurance for them. With many years of working with his clients, he knows all of the questions that come up during the insurance buying process. I hope you walk away with your questions answered. And with that, I'd like to welcome you, Andrew. You can begin.
Andrew Blomberg:
Thank you very much for the introduction, Megan. As Megan just said, my name's Andrew Blomberg, and I want to welcome everyone to our webinar today to discuss some international health insurance options for expats traveling abroad. I thank you all for taking the time out of your day to join us and hope you'll find the webinars to be very informative.
Who is International Citizens Insurance?
Andrew Blomberg:
A little about us to begin. International Citizens Insurance was established back in 2004 and is now one of the largest expat health insurance brokerages in the world. We offer a wide range of products, options, and different fits depending on your coverage and budget needs. Typically, we offer short-term travel type plans, as well as long-term comprehensive expat style plans for individuals, families, groups, or students who live and work outside of their home country. We work with a lot of the top international health insurance companies worldwide.
Andrew Blomberg:
As Megan pointed out my role as the director of sales here at International Citizens Insurance, which is an affiliate of internationalcitizens.com. My team and I talk to our clients on the phone, email via text to basically help them find the right plan to fit their specific needs for different health conditions, budget requirements, or visa requirements.
Andrew Blomberg:
We're a dedicated resource for all our clients in the initial research phase to purchasing the plan and even in the future as well. We care for our clients, we can assist with claims plan questions, renewals, or anything else life throws at you. But enough about us, let's get to our questions.
#1 Do I Need Health Insurance?
Andrew Blomberg:
The number one question you should ask yourself is, "Do I need health insurance?" Basically, this is probably the most common question we get asked on a daily basis is about actually needing health insurance coverage and if so, how much coverage is the right amount? We'd like to say that health insurance is a gamble on yourself to stay healthy. Some people decide to bet on themselves to stay healthy and instead self-insure hoping nothing major happens to them. For others it might be a pre-existing health condition or some sort of visa requirement in the country you're living in or moving to that might force you to purchase a plan in order to protect yourself. Keep in mind, some countries do offer local coverage plans, but you need to check the requirements and the eligibility before moving there. You might need to be a full-time resident or have to pay taxes in order to qualify for a local insurance plan.
Andrew Blomberg:
Some employers even offer local coverages as well. However, in my experience, sometimes these plans are more bare minimum type plans and they might not meet the needs of everyone. That's sort of where private health insurance coverage can be desired by expats to give you peace of mind, increase your coverage limit and possibly give you access to private doctors and hospitals that may be a local plan doesn't have access to. Every country in the world does have its own unique health insurance requirements and ways to receive treatment. Being familiar with local providers who might offer better care is critical when abroad. Most of the private health insurance companies allow you to go and see any doctor or hospital you need to.
Andrew Blomberg:
This means you have access to better care and contracted rates at some providers compared to, say, self-insurance, self-insuring, or going with some sort of group style buy-in type plan that you're limited in your providers. Even if you're considering self-insuring, we usually recommend some sort of an emergency-only inpatient-style plan just in case something major happens. Most international plans that we offer do allow for customization of different benefits where needed. So for this first question here, my short answer for needing insurance is absolutely. And now Megan is going to put up a poll for all of you.
Megan Raftery:
Before the next question, we just wanted to get an idea of what people know in terms of insurance and the different types. If you could just answer this, that would be great.
Poll:
Do you know the difference between travel insurance and international health insurance?
Megan Raftery:
It looks like a lot of people do know the difference, which is great. Some people don't, some people might think they do and the 7% have no idea. That's great. We're glad you're all here because even the people that do know the difference, you'll probably learn something as well. That's great. Let me switch over to the next question.
#2 Why Not Travel Insurance?
Andrew Blomberg:
Great. Hopefully, I can answer some of the confusion there. Our second question today is, why not travel insurance? So this is another common question when researching insurance is, what kind of insurance do I actually need? Typically we describe it as having three different major types of insurance available. There's trip insurance, which is also known as holiday insurance, there's travel insurance, and then finally, there's comprehensive health insurance plans. These are also called expat insurance options. The first option there is trip insurance. This is what you might see from your credit card or what might be offered when you book a flight or hotel. Covers things like lost bags, missed flights, canceled trips, things like that. There's very little medical coverage offered on these plans if any. They're also known as canceled for any reason, which is another version of trip insurance, where basically it reimburses you the cost of the trip if for some reason you can't go on the trip because a family member gets sick or a flight gets canceled or something like that.
Andrew Blomberg:
The second style is travel insurance. This is more of an emergency-style medical plan that usually gives you bare medical coverage abroad. These plans typically work well for somebody who's on a tighter budget, maybe they're traveling short-term, or they just need a plan that they want to meet a visa requirement for the country they're moving to. These plans are usually inpatient-only style coverages, usually don't include things like outpatient care, prescription drugs, health and wellness, checkups, or vision and dental. There's also usually no coverage for any pre-existing conditions. And they usually only cover you abroad. They won't offer a lot of time, say, in your full-time country of residence. Travel plans work well for someone needing coverage for just a few months in a country.
Andrew Blomberg:
Premiums are usually due all upfront for the entire period of coverage needed when you go to do the quote and pay. They're usually not able to be purchased on a month-to-month payment type basis. These plans work well for people who are just traveling away from home for a few weeks or a few months. Lastly, our most popular option is expat-style comprehensive health insurance plans. This coverage is probably more typical of what you have in your home country right now. These plans typically will cover routine wellness checkups. They have outpatient care included, and some even allow you to add routine vision and dental cover. These plans typically protect any sort of health issue that might come up on a day-to-day basis. For that reason, these are the preferred plans for anyone who's moving or going to be living abroad, after all, just because you moved doesn't mean you want to forget about your health insurance or put it on hold.
Andrew Blomberg:
These expat plans are more expensive than travel insurance, but they allow for more flexibility on the benefits that you can pick. Unlike travel insurance, these plans do typically have the option to continue to cover ongoing medical conditions. It would be based on the insurance company's underwriting process. Usually, they'll let you know ahead of time if they will offer coverage and we'll discuss that a little bit more on an upcoming slide. Expat plans are the top option for somebody moving abroad with no set plan to return home in the near future and as mentioned are our most popular option.
Megan Raftery:
I'll give you a second to breathe, Andrew.
#3 What is My Budget?
Andrew Blomberg:
Another important question that you know is usually on everybody's mind is, what is my budget, what can I afford? Budget concerns can play a role in which plan is the best option for your needs. Obviously, everyone would love to be able to afford the top plans available with every coverage, no deductibles, but that might not be the most practical option for somebody on a budget or a fixed income. The cost of a health plan does vary depending on what country you will live in. Certain treatment costs in one country might be more costly compared to the same treatment in another country. For instance, surgery inside the US might cost a lot more than, say, surgery is done in Asia or in certain parts of Europe. Having a clear budget when shopping for insurance can be a very useful tool to make sure you're maximizing your coverages.
Andrew Blomberg:
It's easy to go into comparing plans like anything in life and just pick the cheapest thing or what looks to be the best value for you there. Taking a budget-friendly plan or the cheapest insurance can have some downsides later on. The plan may look great upfront, but when you need a claim paid in the future, it might end up costing you more if the claim got denied upfront, than if you had just paid for better insurance, to begin with. Another pain point can be the time and the effort that you're communicating with the insurance company via phone calls and emails to try and get a claim sorted out. As you add more coverage onto insurance plans, the more costly they can become. A plan for just major emergencies, an inpatient style plan, typically less expensive than, say, if you add on prescription drug cover or vision and dental coverage. Some health companies will even charge more to offset a preexisting condition, but this may be the only way you're able to find coverage abroad.
Andrew Blomberg:
Health insurance can be confusing and depending on the prices you received, overwhelming as well. You need to know the details of the quote. A quote from one place may look better than from another carrier. Be sure you're comparing apples to apples in terms of the coverage limits, deductibles, and policy rules. Many countries do have national health care for free. Getting a private health plan for the first time can certainly be a lot. That's where brokers such as myself and our team can help. We can walk you through the fine print and find options to meet your budget needs. And with that, I think Megan's got another poll for everyone.
Megan Raftery:
I do. I like this question. Let's see, here we go. In the next question, you are cutting up some fruit and slice your finger. You need stitches or sutures. What type of insurance do you need?
Megan Raftery:
I love watching these answers come in.
Andrew Blomberg:
I know. It looks like we got a 50-50 split here. Outpatient and Emergency. It depends on what country you're in and where is the closest place to get coverage.
Megan Raftery:
Great. All right. Andrew, hopefully, you'll explain that to them. Here we go.
#4 What is Covered?
Andrew Blomberg:
Another common question is what is actually covered. My first tip is to always know the fine print of the policy and what you're buying ahead of time. Finding a plan that offers the coverages you need on a daily or monthly basis is arguably the most important piece of insurance. You don't want to purchase a plan thinking it's going to cover something only to have the claim be denied or find out later on that, in fact, didn't cover what you thought it did. This can leave a huge financial burden on both you and possibly your family if you're unable to pay the claim. In some cases with severe issues, it can actually financially bankrupt people as well. I cannot emphasize enough reading the fine print and knowing what you're purchasing ahead of time. Take time to research the plans and use all available resources.
Andrew Blomberg:
Again, having a broker like us on your side to give you peace of mind as well is extremely important. We don't work for the insurance company, we are completely unaffiliated in terms of not being a direct employee of them. We can give you an unbiased opinion. Finding a broker that works with the top providers who are reputable and trustworthy can go a long way.
Back to the coverages. Typically, I like to describe six major benefits when you select an expat or a comprehensive insurance plan. These are inpatient care, outpatient care, medical evacuation and repatriation coverages, health and wellbeing, coverages, vision and dental, and finally, the different regions you can be covered. Most plans either can do, say, Europe only, Southeast Asia only, worldwide excluding the US or worldwide. Make sure you know the area of coverage that you're looking at ahead of time as well. In-patient care is typically more of the major things where you're taken to a hospital.
Andrew Blomberg:
This could be something like cancer, a heart attack, a bad car accident, a stroke, something along those lines. That typically comes standard in every single plan that we offer as well. Outpatient care is more day-to-day type things. Think about going to a local minute clinic or a walk-in clinic. This could be something like picking up a prescription drug, going and getting physical therapy done, you roll your ankle and need to go get a quick x-ray done and they give you a few crutches to take home with you. Or as Megan mentioned, possibly cutting your finger and just needing a couple of stitches there, usually that's done on an outpatient basis. Next up would be medical evacuation, and that can help get you from one hospital to another hospital, if needed, say in the same country or if it was something more severe and you needed to be transported to a hospital in a different country or back to your home country for long-term care, medical evacuation can typically take care of that.
Andrew Blomberg:
Health and wellbeing coverage is more for preventative things that you're scheduling ahead of time. Something like a routine health checkup, a pap smear, a mammogram, a colonoscopy, things like that typically fall into the health and wellbeing coverage. And then finally there's vision and dental cover. Most of the plans do come with emergency vision and dental cover, say, that you fell off your bike and knocked your front teeth in or something got in your eye and you had to go to the office. That's covered standard, but they do a lot to add on more routine cover for cleanings, eye exams, getting a cavity filled, picking up prescription contact lenses, things like that.
Andrew Blomberg:
Once again, most of the plans that we offer do allow you to pick and choose the different benefits and add-ons while some actually include most upfront. Again, study the plan benefits, coverage limits in terms of treatment before you select the plan. In terms of what you need, every person and every country is unique. For some areas just having inpatient cover is fine as people tend to pay out of pocket for outpatient care or a routine physical where it's a very affordable cover.
Andrew Blomberg:
In other countries that might be much more expensive than just adding it to the plan. Being familiar with medical underwriting decisions can also be a tricky area. Some companies might put exclusions on certain coverages relating to a preexisting condition where you might no longer need, say, outpatient care or something along those lines. Be comfortable with the exclusions before you purchase the plan instead of trying to fight if something life-altering happens to you and you're on the hook for the hospital bill again. We have helped thousands of people all citizenships residing worldwide, and I've seen almost everything that you can look for in a plan or that somebody needs in a plan. So again, let us help you pick the right plan.
#5 How Do Claims Work?
Andrew Blomberg:
Our final question here is, how do claims work? Claims have been mentioned a lot so far and can cause a lot of headaches and waste of time if not handled correctly. Again, the companies our brokerage works with are the ones we ourselves use when we travel outside of the country. We trust them to pay claims out if something happened to us. Reading customer reviews of companies, researching what others say on social media, and learning more about the company's claims processes are all very important prior to purchasing. Most people would not purchase a car without looking at reviews. So why do the same with health insurance? When it comes to receiving treatment, finding a hospital that has direct billing is usually the simplest. This means the hospital will send your bills over to the insurance company instead of you having to pay the bill upfront.
Andrew Blomberg:
This makes the claim process much easier as the insured would review the claim that was sent to them and figured out if you owed anything, say, towards a deductible, if you don't know anything, then you won't receive any bills. If you go to a provider that doesn't have a direct pay relationship with the insurer, you would pay the bill, submit the claim over to the insurance company who would then review it and process it. Most claims get paid out in about five to seven business days once all the necessary documentation has been received from both the customer and the hospital. Usually it's done via direct reimbursement to get paid back for anything that you paid upfront to the account that they have on file for you.
Andrew Blomberg:
All the companies that we work with do have 24/7 helplines that you can call for immediate treatment needs in an emergency. Customer service portals also exists where you can view your existing plan benefits, submit claims, track the progress of a claim, and what has been paid towards the deductible. The claims process can be a confusing one and if for any reason you have questions need help, a broker like ourselves can assist with that process. Unlike other brokers, or if you purchase directly from an insurance company, say, one of their sales agents, the relationship you have with our brokerage does not end when you purchase a policy. Our team here is your dedicated help center for anything insurance-related during your policy period or in the future.
Megan Raftery:
We went overtime on what I promised on the presentation piece, but it was all very valuable information for sure. I wanted to make sure we get through it. We'll review the next steps quickly. And then we do have some questions coming in. I want to make sure we get to most of these if we can.
Next Steps
Andrew Blomberg:
Wonderful. So you might ask, "What do I do now?" I typically recommend three steps, create a coverage list for what you think you might need, try to understand the budgets and deductible amounts you feel comfortable with and paying for the insurance that would cover you in full, and finally contact a broker like us to help find a plan to fit those coverage and budget needs. Thank you all again for taking the time to join us today. I can imagine this was a lot of information to take in all at once. Doing some basic homework can actually go a long way. But don't worry if it is too much that's what a broker like ourselves is here for.
Andrew Blomberg:
There's no cost to using a broker. The plans cost the exact same if you go to a broker or if you go directly to the insurance company. Working with a broker helps to give you an unbiased opinion of insurance companies and can save you hours of researching, generating quotes, and comparing basic coverages. All plans are actually free to apply to as well. Most applications are done all online in 15 minutes or less and are done either via email or phone. Plans can even begin as soon as one day after the application is approved. Let us help simplify your expat insurance needs and guide you to the best plan to fit your unique situation. The world's a complicated place and insurance shouldn't be.
Questions?
Megan Raftery:
It's flying in here. I'm going to give you a couple... Well, actually we have six minutes. This is good. The first question coming from Anne, "Do you offer Schengen insurance. I'm going to say it wrong? and explain the required coverage.
Andrew Blomberg:
The Schengen visa is probably the most common visa that we get asked about. That's typically European-focused there and you can sort of go either way with that visa. Most of the travel plans we offer do meet the bare minimum there in terms of, I think it's 30,000 Euro, some sort of low deductible, has to have emergency evacuation and COVID cover right now. So yes, we do offer plans that meet the bare minimum there. Again, I usually like to recommend maybe looking at more of the expat style, which absolutely meets the visa requirements there and can give you a little bit more peace of mind.
Megan Raftery:
Awesome. Rachel is asking, "Is it a good idea" and I think this is a great question, "Is it a good idea to only get insurance for the country in which you're residing and then for the times that you go home and visit your family, just get travel insurance?"
Andrew Blomberg:
Yes. Again, it can definitely depend on the coverage area there. Iif it's a US citizen moving abroad, the plan might cost a good 20% if not more, to include the US cover there. Some people decide to cancel an existing insurance plan and just take out a plan that's either worldwide or worldwide excluding the US. There's maybe a little bit more value there. But yes, it's a very common thing for people to just purchase coverage for a specific country or a specific geographic area that they might be traveling around in, say, you're moving around Europe, and then just purchase some sort of short-term travel plan for a week when you're heading back home.
Megan Raftery:
Eugene is asking, one, how he can get in touch with you and all the information here which is great. You can email text call and then the "link" was in the previous slide. But he's asking another question, "How long before departing being an expat should we contact you?"
Andrew Blomberg:
Yeah, that's actually an interesting one. A lot of our plans can actually cover you for specific periods of time in your home country if, say, you were ending a job inside the US and your current employer plan was terminating. We can offer coverage for a few months prior to you actually leaving your country. I usually like to tell people, anywhere three months, four months, maybe in advance to really start looking. Some plans do only open up applications for 30 or 45 days prior to your start date in terms of being able to apply. But knowing the plan you want ahead of time definitely gives you peace of mind. If you pick all the plan benefits out, you basically reach out to us and say you're ready to go and we can get it all squared away for you and check one more thing off your checklist for moving abroad. Another common question is, somebody needs documents to prove that they have health insurance to apply for a visa. Again, we can certainly get that set up ahead of time for you.
Megan Raftery:
Eileen is asking, "Can you explain self-insure?" I know you mentioned that a few minutes ago, "is that if you buy insurance directly from an insurance company?"
Andrew Blomberg:
No. Self-insurance would be, maybe somebody has a bank account, say, with $50,000 in it. And instead of paying $2,000 a year for health insurance for the next 20 years, they're saying, "I am just going to pay for anything that I need health insurance-related out of my bank account." Self-insuring is you are paying any claim that comes your way. If you're lucky you need one visit to the doctor each year, that's $100. Once again, you're gambling on yourself in the long run. That might be great for five years, but you just never know, there could be a car accident or a heart attack or something like that and then you're looking at a $30,000 bill where having insurance would have made more sense. Self-insuring is basically saying that you are paying all of the insurance claims and you do not have any sort of insurance whatsoever.
Megan Raftery:
If I have international insurance, does that eliminate the need for travel insurance?
Andrew Blomberg:
Typically, yes. You can still always purchase trip insurance, say, that you had a flight or vacation plans. You're living in Europe and you're taking a vacation to South Africa and you wanted to make sure that the 15,000 that you paid for that trip would be covered in case COVID happens or in case a family member gets sick and you can't make the trip. You can always purchase trip insurance there. Usually having travel insurance and expat insurance is a bit of an overkill. We have seen it before, but you can't duplicate claims. You can't submit a claim to two companies for the exact thing there. I would say usually it's either expat or travel.
Megan Raftery:
We are already at 11:30 eastern time and I don't want to keep anyone any longer. But if you have put a question in the chat, we will address it personally, because I don't want you to go away without your question answered. That was the idea. Like I said, we will send out the recording later today. We'll address the questions that came in that we did not get to. And again, the information is here if you need to get in touch and really appreciate you attending, I have one last really quick poll, just to get an idea of how you thought this and enjoy the rest of your day. Really, really happy to have you attend. Thank you.
Andrew Blomberg:
Yes. Thank you for having me. And once again, reach out to us, we're always happy to have a phone call with you, answer any questions via email, or anything like that. And our contact information should get sent over to you just in case you don't have it.
Megan Raftery:
Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate your time too. I know it's taking you away from your clients.
Andrew Blomberg:
Not at all. Happy to help and hopefully provide some knowledge and answer some questions here.
Megan Raftery:
Awesome. Thank you. Have a great day.
Andrew Blomberg:
You as well. Take care.