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Health Insurance Guide
5 Tips For People Who Are Considering Becoming An Expatriate
Every year many thousands of people make the decision to move overseas permanently and to start a new life for themselves in a foreign land. For a significant number of these people this proves to be one of the best decisions that they have ever made, but for many others the dream quickly turns into a nightmare. Below are some of the numerous things which you will have to consider.
• Make certain that you really do wish to live overseas permanently.
It is often said that the grass is always greener on the other side and it is all too easy to conjure up an idyllic picture of living in the country of your choice. But, once you arrive, you could find that the grass is much greener back home. It is also normally the case that your opinion of a foreign country when you are a holidaymaker is quite different from your view when you are a resident.
Not only is it essential to visit the country a number of times before you make any decision to move there, but you ought to visit at differing times of the year and for increasing periods of time. You also have to try 'living' in the country by renting a condo or house and living as far as is possible as you would be living as a resident and not as a holidaymaker. If you still feel that moving is the right choice after spending several months or so 'living' in the country, then there is a good chance that you would not come to regret your choice.
• Make sure that you understand the immigration rules for the country concerned.
Check on the current immigration requirements of your chosen destination and also look at its past history on immigration and any known or rumored plans for change.
In the vast majority of cases you will need to meet strict visa requirements and some of these may be inconvenient, expensive and leave you without much security. The very last thing you ought to do is to sever your ties with home, purchase a condo and settle the children into school only to discover that you cannot extend your visa and are given three days to get out of the country.
• Take a very close look at your finances.
Think very carefully about how you will support yourself financially in your chosen country. Do you, for example, intend to seek employment once you arrive to provide you with an income, or do you plan to fund yourself from saving, investments or retirement income from home?
If you want to seek employment overseas then how simple will it be to find a job? If you are lucky enough to find a job, what kind of salary can you expect? Will you be allowed to work at all? A large number of countries will require you to have a work permit and these are sometimes issued only in exceptional circumstances or for employment which requires special qualifications or skills. In a lot of cases your visa will expressly state that you may not seek employment.
If you are going to fund your stay from sources at home, do you have enough resources not simply for today but for the next ten or twenty years or beyond? If you are going to be taking retirement income overseas will it keep pace with rising costs? In many countries you are permitted to receive retirement income overseas but, if you elect to do so, you lose any cost of living increases and your income is pegged at the level at which you start to receive it overseas.
• Consider what to do with your assets back home.
If you own your own home will you rent it out, sell it or just leave it sitting empty? What will you do with your car, furniture and other personal possessions?
Of course your home is much more than merely as asset because it also provides you with a tie to your home country and affords you an address back home which could be very useful if you do not have friends or family who would be happy to let you use their address. Just wait until your credit card runs out and your credit card company tells you that they will only send the replacement card to the address to which the account is registered in your home country.
As far as your other possessions are concerned you could of course get rid of many of them if you want to, keeping only those or especial sentimental or real value, or you might decide to take them with you. But how simple is it to ship things abroad and how much will it cost? Look carefully too at the regulations in your chosen country. Some countries will let you bring more or less whatever you wish into the country, while other countries will have very strict limits or levy high import taxes. In many cases for example it would be much less expensive to purchase a new car than to ship your own car and to suffer high import duty and possibly to need to have the car altered to meet local requirements for registration.
• Examine the provision of health care.
You could feel fit and healthy now but, if you are considering moving abroad permanently, then a time will come when you will have to avail yourself of the local health care facilities. So, just how good are the local facilities and how do they stand up against the facilities that you have grown accustomed to?
Yet another very important consideration is the availability of public health care. If you live in a country which has a publicly funded health care system, such as the United Kingdom, then you may be more than a bit surprised by the cost of treatment when you are residing in a country which has only private health care. On the other hand, if you are used to paying for private health care, you may be very pleasantly surprised to find that you can get the same or better treatment at a fraction of the cost.
Whatever the case, however, health care is one thing which you have to examine very carefully and, at the very least, you will most certainly need some form of hospitalization insurance for expatriates.
Expat international health medical insurance is easy to arrange, as long as you do so before your departure, and there are many insurance companies which will provide expatriate quotes.
This brief list of only five tips is far from exhaustive but hopefully it will provide you with a starting point and set you in the right direction. Deciding to become an expat is a huge step and one which needs considerable and careful thought.
Don't leave home without international health insurance expat medical cover.
Agent: A person who is authorized by an MCO or an insurer to act on its behalf to negotiate, sell, and service managed care contracts.
Independent agents: Agents that represent the products of several health plans or insurers.
Prepaid care: health care services provided to an HMO member in exchange for a fixed, monthly premium paid in advance of the delivery of medical care.
Subsidiary: A company that is owned by another company, its parent.
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