Buying health insurance online could be dangerous for your wallet

Insurance agencies report an increasing proportion of sales online and insurers like it because it saves back-office time. For customers, there’s the attraction of instant and easy cover. Insurance kicks in right away. Job done.

However, you might have to be more careful. Buying insurance of any type is trickier than buying, say, a washing machine. And international medical insurance is more complex than domestic insurance. You can fall into the trap of buying cover from a respectable company only to find, as you arrive at immigration in Abu Dhabi, that your plan is not recognized. You could have to be on the next flight home.

As countries across the globe find their health budgets rocketing, so compulsory insurance for expats becomes a legal necessity.

Governments also tend to demand insurance from a local provider, or at least an international insurer with local connections – effectively a brokerage with a local businessman on the board.

Germany, for instance, is particularly reluctant to recognise some top-rated insurance plans from UK providers who are dominant in the international market. Some claim that the German position breaks EU competition rules. But it’s not quite that simple, because under German law insurers have to provide all-embracing cover, such as aspects of elderly and long-term care cover and that is beyond the scope of most international companies.

EU-Digest