The question we get asked most often, both by friends and by strangers, is what we do for health insurance. Which makes sense: it’s a big worry, especially as you age. So we thought we’d talk you through our process.
Things are simpler if you retire to just one place. If you move to another country, you are often eligible for national insurance once you obtain a residency card. Even if you aren’t, in many places, private plans can come fairly inexpensively. We also know expats, especially those in countries with a low cost of living like those in Central and South America, who go without health insurance, paying for what they need out of pocket. Even significant medical events often end up fairly affordable.
The idea of not having health insurance makes us pretty anxious, the kind of anxious we get when we don’t know where our next meal is coming from! So what do you do if you don’t live in a single location, but don’t want to blow your whole monthly budget on healthcare? We looked into a number of companies before we left, but couldn’t find anything we loved.
Most of the international conglomerates were really expensive. We ended up buying insurance through a French company, via the Association of Americans Resident Overseas. Our experience with them is still more or less positive (latest report here, with this year’s update coming soon). Their costs double when you add U.S. coverage, but that’s fairly standard.
For travel medical insurance, we have recently been looking into SafetyWing, a well-ranked company with a great cost, starting at $40 for four weeks. In fact – full disclosure! – we’re now SafetyWing ambassadors, because the more we learn about the company, the more we like! As a supplemental health insurance for travelers, we recommend their Nomad Insurance. Even better, they’ve now launched Nomad Health, a wraparound health insurance for those with no fixed address. (Alas, it’s not currently available to U.S. residents!)
Featured image credit: ILRI-medical-veterinary-laboratory-in-Busia-Kenya-by-International-Livestock-Research-Institute-is-licensed-under-CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0.jpg
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I checked out Safety Wing when you first mentioned it a few weeks ago. Alas, they won’t cover anyone over age 70 (excludes my husband) or pre-existing conditions (excludes me).
For anyone who wants to retire abroad, my strong recommendation is Get a health insurance plan in place well before you turn 65, even if you’re not planning to move for a few years, and keep it current. After age 65, finding insurance becomes far more difficult.
Trying to get on the health insurance of the country you move to is a real Catch-22 — you can apply for the country’s insurance after you’ve lived there awhile (usually a year), but to get the visa to live there for that first year you have to have your own health insurance. This is true for Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Greece — and all the countries I checked that have residency visas for retirees at all.
If you’re fabulously rich, I’m sure you can get around these requirements as you can around the residency requirements. But if you’re not a millionaire, get your health insurance lined up early! I wish we had.
Thanks for this, Elizabeth! We have found the same thing. Have you looked into our current insurer, MSH International (available through AARO)? And good luck!