Peter Denis

2 minutes ago, elgenon said:

Hi UJ. Is this also possible in the US?

Yes, it are the standard Non Imm O-A Visa requirements and that visa can be applied for at the Thai Embassy/Consulate of your home-country.

9 hours ago, DefaultName said:

As I understand it, if you test positive, you're straight into quarantine at your own expense.  Do not pass go, do not go home and pack a bag, straight into quarantine.  Even if you have no symptoms.  Nope, not doing that.

Everybody that currently enters Thailand needs to have subscribed to a 100.000 US $ covid-19 treatment insurance.  So if you test positive and you need treatment, the costs will be re-imbursed up to the coverage provided by the insurance you subscribed to.

The snag however is that some insurance policies only reimburse actual covid-treatment (e.g. Pacific Cross), so if you are tested positive but it turns out that it is 'false alarm' the hospitalization cost will not be paid by them (as you were not ill, but were only preventatively quarantained at the hospital). 

Note: There was a report from someone encountering the above.  Luckily he did fly in on Emirates, and Emirates provides FREE 100.000 US $ covid-19 treatment insurance included in the ticket-price (30 days for a one-way ticket, full period of your return-ticket).  And when PacificCross refused to pay the hospitalization with no treatment cost, the Emirates insurance paid the full bill, no questions asked.

4 hours ago, gt162 said:

 

This one peter?

 

https://www.aainsure.net/

Yes, I attach below already here the Addendum-2 to the full Guideline document I did sent you PM, as it might be useful for other TVF-members too.

= = = = =

AA Insurance Brokers are a reliable Thailand-based insurance-broker that can help you with your insurance needs. And even more important, a broker will represent you in case you need to file a claim, and that fact alone would already be a reason to make use of an insurance-broker instead of having to do this yourself.

> https://www.aainsure.net

Send your request to Jenny > [email protected]

She is highly recommended by the main TVF poster on Medical/Insurance matters. Other people in the AA Insurance Brokers office are also fluent in English like Jenny, but she appears to be the Top Dog in insurance matters.

It is recommended to proceed as follows:

> Send her an e-mail with the following details:

·       Your age and nationality < also add a copy of the ID-page of your passport >

·       Your current situation > married or single, address where you are living or intend to stay, the Visa on which you are or will be staying while in Thailand (e.g. a Non Imm O-A Visa for reason of retirement)

·       Your insurance needs.

Some aspects to consider when outlining those insurance needs:

·       Wanting decent health-insurance that would allow you to be covered for treatment by ANY Thai hospital (government or private)

·       The deductible you are willing to finance yourself for any treatment received (obviously in function of the decrease in premium such deductible would provide)

·       Whether you intent to make trips to your home-country or neighboring countries to Thailand, in such case there could be a need for international coverage and not just coverage in Thailand

·       Any pre-existing conditions (healthy, not obese, quit smoking/drinking years ago)

·       Any other info of possible relevance.

Most probably, Jenny will then contact you requesting some additional info which I did not think about. And subsequently provide you with one or more quotes with fitting health-insurance that meet your needs.

You can then compare with the quotes you might have already got and decide how you want to proceed.

6 hours ago, superal said:

That is what I have so only need covid insurance for 3 months being the remainder of my extension ?

If you have a valid Re-Entry Permit that protects the permission to stay from the 1-year extension based on your original Non Imm O Visa, you would only need the insurance for the remaining period protected by that Re-Entry Permit (3 months in your case).

Be aware, that if you consider subscribing to the Regency for Expats insurance, that it CANNOT be used to meet the mandatory 400K/40K in/out-patient health-insurance requirement when applying for the 1-year extension for reason of retirement based on your original Non Imm O-A Visa. This because Regency for Expats is not a TGIA-associated insurer, which are the only ones that can provide such Non Imm O-A compliant insurance.

31 minutes ago, superal said:

OK , thanks for that but if I have only 3 months left on my non o retirement extension do I have to get 1 years covid insurance ?

No , you only need to have the 100.000 US $ covid-19 treatment insurance for the period provided by the Permission to Stay you would receive on entering Thailand.   If you have a Re-Entry Permit that protects the permission to stay from the 1-year extension based on your original Non Imm O Visa, you would only need the insurance for that remaining 3 month period you would be stamped in when entering Thailand.

Very good EMIRATES Customer Service.

Yesterday I received a message from EMIRATES about the not used return-flight I had booked for my lady and myself (BKK - Dubai - Brussels on May 1, 2020 and return on 3 June, 2020).

Back then end of March 2020 Emirates had cancelled the Dubai - Brussels flight due to covid at that moment. When I enquired about a refund in April 2020, Emirates told me I could either request a refund or use that same reservation-number as it would be valid for 12 months for same itinerary without any extra cost.

Obviously I did choose for the latter, but that expiry date was approaching so I enquired again, and EMIRATES has extended the validity of those tickets I bought last year to THREE years.

Perfect service, as the ticket-prices would be considerably higher now. So I now have still more than 2 years to decide when to use that return ticket.

1 hour ago, superal said:

I thought the same i.e. insurance only required for the length of stay or length of visa ? 

As part of the CoE requirements EVERYBODY currently entering Thailand needs to have a 100.000 US $ covid-19 treatment insurance that fully covers the period provided by the Permission to Stay he would receive on entering Thailand.  So it will depend on which Visa you enter Thailand whether you need that covid-19 insurance for 45 days (VE-entry), 60 days (Tourist Visa entry), 90 days (STV or 90-day Non Imm O Visa entry) or 1 year (Non Imm O-A Visa entry).

8 minutes ago, UKresonant said:

Is it still  just a tick box insurance to get the VISA? (TGIA)

If it still has the T&C clause about being in Thailand for six months out of the last 12, and if you are there 6 months and back home for 6 months, by default does that not assure you of having no cover (if they check)?

Which of the two insurance requirements are you referring to?

> The LMG Insurance Plan-1 policy (with 200K deductible) that meets the 400K/40K health-insurance requirement, is indeed nothing more than a paper that allows you to meet the Non Imm O-A Visa application and extension criteria.

> The AXA Sawasdee travel-insurance does provide decent coverage for any accident/illness you might encounter while in Thailand. 

The main benefit from subscribing to that insurance is that it meets BOTH Non Imm O-A insurance requirements for entering Thailand.

But indeed you should check when subscribing to it whether that 6 month clause would be applicable for that policy.

If it is, and you are looking for actual coverage you should contact a Thai insurance broker (like AA Insure) which can help you with subscribing to a policy (Thai or foreign/international) that will meet your actual insurance needs.  In most cases an international insurance policy will provide (far) better value than their Thai counter-parts.  The advantage of using a broker is of course that he/she will be familiar with the situation in Thailand, and will also help/represent you in case you need to make a claim, an invaluable benefit in the dog-eat-dog insurance world.

2 minutes ago, placnx said:

Kulldorff and Bhattacharya are two of three who wrote the infamous Great Barrington Declaration which was denounced in the Lancet:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32153-X/fulltext

This latter became the John Snow Declaration and was subsequently subscribed by around 3000 scientists. Had the advice of Great Barrington been followed, so many more could have died. Just look at Brazil these days.

Seems to me that scientists are a bit more reluctant to sign the John Snow Memorandum.  It currently has 6.900 signatures instead of the 3.000 you mention...

Below the status of signatures for the Great Barrington Declaration.

58 minutes ago, onebir said:

Dang, the post I was quoting seemed to imply not - thanks!

When applying for the Non Imm O-A Visa at the Thai Embassy/Consulate in your home-country you need to provide evidence of having subscribed to a health-insurance policy that meets the 400K/40K in/out-patient requirement.  Both foreign and Thai insurance are accepted, but for foreign insurance your insurer needs to fill-in/sign the Foreign Insurance Certificate (which might prove difficult as it refers to Thai legislation and most insurers will be reluctant signing such document as they are not familiar with such legislation).  But in that case you can make use - when under 75 years of age - of the Thai IO-approved LMG Insurance Plan-1 policy with 200K deductible, which meets the 400K/40K health-insurance requirements and annual premium is only 6.000 THB to 11.400 THB in the age categories of 51 to 75 years of age.

Currently to enter Thailand you also need a 100.000 US $ covid-19 treatment insurance.  When your current foreign/international insurance does not meet that covid-19 requirement, you could consider subscribing to AXA Sawasdee travel-insurance which not only provides decent travel-insurance (covering accidents/illnesses you might encounter while in Thailand), but ALSO meets both insurance requirements.  A 3-month coverage period would cost approx 7.000 THB, but when entering on a Non Imm O-A Visa you would need a full year coverage, as the covid-19 insurance has to cover the full length of the permission to stay you would receive on entering Thailand.

After having used the almost 2 years of Immigration hassle-free stay that a Non Imm O-A Visa can provide you, and deciding not to exit Thailand (and apply for a new Non Imm O-A Visa in your home-country) you can apply for the 1-year extension of that Non Imm O-A Visa at your local Imm Office.  Doing so and when applying for reason of RETIREMENT, you will be required to show evidence of a THAI insurance policy meeting the 400K/40K health-insurance requirement (you can use the LMG Insurance Plan-1 policy to meet that requirement)

When applying for any other reason than retirement (e.g. marriage or dependant children or other) there is no need for any insurance for that 1-year extension based on your original Non Imm O-A Visa.

6 minutes ago, Trujillo said:

“Face masks should not be worn by healthy individuals to protect themselves from acquiring respiratory infection because there is no evidence to suggest that face masks worn by healthy individuals are effective in preventing people from becoming ill.”

 

-- JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association)

The mask of the future?

> https://twitter.com/wef/status/1379720605235175433

Posted 3 days ago on the Twitter-account of the World Economic Forum, and heralded there as a major innovation - "the smart mask that can track your breathing and let you know if you are wearing it wrong or even if you forget to wear it at all."

No, thank you!

10 minutes ago, Londinium said:

...

i usually spend 6 months of each year here. Obviously, with Covid, things are a bit different at present and I;m having to stay longer. It’s a real pain keeping so much money tied up in an account here so I’d be interested in alternatives as well.

The response to your query is basically the same as for the OP.

When spending 6 months on/off in Thailand and not wanting to tie up +800K on a personal Thai bank-account to meet Immigration requirements for 1-year retirement extensions, your best option would be to apply for the Non Imm O-A Visa at the Thai Embassy/Consulate in your home-country.

>> I did PM you the very same Guideline document I did sent to the OP, on how to meet the mandatory Non Imm O-A compliant 400K/40K health-insurance when applying for the Non Imm O-A Visa in your home-country.

In your case, not wanting to apply for Visa or extensions at your local Thai Immigration Office once you are in Thailand for the 6 months on/off, applying for the Non Imm O-A Visa at the Thai Embassy/Consulate in your home-country is your best option.

Such Non Imm O-A Visa will provide you with almost 2 years of Imm Office hassle-free stay in Thailand with:

- NO need to apply for Visa/Extensions at your local Imm Office during those 2 years;

- NO need to park/transfer funds to a Thai personal bank-account in order to meet Immigration requirements during those 2 years.

And at the end of those 2 years you can simply apply for a new Non Imm O-A Visa when in your home-country, and thus repeat the cycle.

> The one thing you need to be aware off is that the Non Imm O-A Visa requires a mandatory IO-approved 400K/40K in/out-patient health-insurance when applying for it.

Both Thai and foreign insurance are accepted (but foreign insurance requires your insurer to fill in the Foreign Insurance Certificate).  In case you do not have foreign insurance (or your insurer is not willing to fill in that FIC, as it refers to Thai legislation which he will not be familiar with), you can subscribe to Thai insurance.  When under 75 years of age the LMG Insurance Plan-1 policy will be a cheap and easy way of meeting that insurance requirement (the annual premium is between 6.000 THB to 11.400 THB in the age categories of 51 to 75 years of age).

Currently with also covid-19 insurance being required for entering Thailand, you might consider AXA Sawasdee travel-insurnace, which meets BOTH insurance requirements and will cost approx 7.000 THB for a 3-month coverage (but you would need it for a full year, as the insurance has to cover the full period of the permission to stay you will receive on entering Thailand, which for a Non Imm O-A Visa entry is 12 months).

>> I did sent you PM a Guideline document on how to meet the mandatory Non Imm O-A compliant 400K/40K health-insurance when applying for the Non Imm O-A Visa in your home-country.

It also explains in detail how to align your insurance policy expiry date with the permission to stay you would receive on entry, this in order to make full use of the two years stay in Thailand that Non Imm O-A Visa can provide you. 

10 hours ago, hioctane said:

If the vaccinated are tested negative before they enter, then the odds of infecting the unvaccinated are even lower when combined with reduced transmission rates.

Besides, they are not allowing the vaccinated to enter quarantine free until the Thai people are vaccinated 70% (Phase 2 Phuket plan).

 

Which reinforces the need for a vaccine passport so that some people can get on with their lives and get the economy going again. Yes, I understand that this may sound unfair to the unvaccinated but shutting down economies does more harm than good. Open things up safely with vaccine passports.

It seems that Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya are of a different opinion re vaccine passports.

FYI > Mr. Kulldorff is a biostatistician and epidemiologist, and professor at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Bhattacharya is a physician and economist, and professor at Stanford Medical School.

Attached a link to the April 6 article they published in the Wall Street Journal > https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccine-passports-prolong-lockdowns-11617726629

For those that cannot access the full article, I added the PDF version.

Vaccine Passports Prolong Lockdowns - WSJ _ April 2021.pdf

5 hours ago, Hooplehead said:

As I have DVT, I daily read the blood clot forums, and the one stand out is in the last month, every other person with a new blood clot is a young (20's-30's) female on birth control who've just been vaccinated. Before a month ago, maybe one post every few months. So something is going on at least from the perspective of the DVT community.

Attached below the link to VAERS, which I posted earlier in this thread.

Go to > https://vaers.hhs.gov/index.html

It's the official government site for reporting Vaccine Adverse Events.

It contains now +57.000 COVID reports (as of 3 April 2021).

As the data collected on it are not always easily searchable you can also go to

> https://www.openvaers.com/covid-data?fbclid=IwAR13k1EC87zOKKcRmZS3qX_UxTRQ8ynoHUuDGxHfVFPOc9iwOq-0n-jdR_k

In reponse to my earlier post, another poster @DJBenz correctly remarked that

- “VAERS is a passive reporting system, meaning it relies on individuals to send in reports of their experiences to CDC and [the Food and Drug Administration]. VAERS is not designed to determine if a vaccine caused a health problem, but is especially useful for detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse event reporting that might indicate a possible safety problem with a vaccine.”

and that

- “The report of an adverse event to VAERS is not documentation that a vaccine caused the event.”

The main purpose of VAERS is its 'early signalling' function.

Take a look at the graph below, which shows the 'deaths per million vaccinations' since 2006. 

In the absence of regulations on what was exactly required for an STV-extension, several people applying for such an extension were confronted with widely differing requirements at their local Imm Office.

The most extreme I came across was where an Imm Officer imposed the same requirements as when applying for the STV in your home-country.

That probably triggered the issuing of attached Info-Graphic (which is pretty much in line with the requirements as posted by @travelerjim in the post above this one).

12 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

There have been several posts in another thread about Wise, where the poster insists the transfer took seconds. I do not believe them either.

See my earlier post, copied again below.

>> My fastest transfer from my Belgian bank-account to my Kasikorn Thai bank-account took 7 seconds.  The SMS from Kasikorn with receipt confirmation pinged almost immediately after having hit GO on the Wise website.

I did had such 'almost instant' transfers twice (end 2020), but lately it takes approx 1 business day (when no holidays in Thailand) before I receive funds transferred.

10 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

The transfers always arrive in Bkk Bank as FTT. My IO has never asked me the source of my money, only interested that it comes from abroad. He also accepts the combo method ie THB 50k per month plus the equivalent of THB 200k in a Foreign Currency bank account

Thanks for your clarification that transferring the THB balance from your Wise borderless-account to your personal Bangkok Bank account will show up as FTT (when marking the 'funds for long-stay' option as reason for your transfer).

What is your Imm Office?  You are lucky that your local Imm Officer does not ask to provide evidence of the source of the money.  Of course if the money comes from a pension you receive, or other source of income like from rental or interests received, you won't have a problem providing evidence of its source.

2 minutes ago, Tanoshi said:

Never seen claims of receiving Wise transfers in 'seconds', not to their Thai branch account anyhow.

Hours, rather than days, but seconds is an exaggeration.

Since Bangkok Bank now use set times to process the transfers, the fasted transfer I made took 16 hours, which was just 57,600 seconds. ????

My fastest transfer from my Belgian bank-account to my Kasikorn Thai bank-account took 7 seconds.  The SMS from Kasikorn with receipt confirmation pinged almost immediately after having hit GO on the Wise website.

I did had such 'almost instant' transfers twice (end 2020), but lately it takes approx 1 business day (when no holidays in Thailand) before I receive funds transferred.

22 hours ago, KannikaP said:

You can only do a DD from Wise's GBP account, and so are committed to the exchange rate ON THAT DAY.

Better to 'build up' a THB balance during the month, as & when the rate looks good, so that you have the required amount (THB 65k ? )available on the day you need to send it. This way it evens out any fluctuations during the month. If of course, the rate shoots up, then you exchange more.

When using the method you mention, i.e. building up a THB balance during the month and then transferring the required amount (+40K or +65K each and every month, depending whether it is a marriage or retirement extension) will you then not experience difficulties proving to Immigration that the funds originated from abroad? 

In other words would the transfer from your THB Wise border-less account be accepted as 'funds originating from abroad' by Immigration?

And it would probably be even more difficult to provide evidence of the SOURCE of those funds when the Imm Officer handling your application also requests that information.

Note: And some offices (e.g. Jomtien) only accept a 'pension statement' as source of the funds when using the monthly income transfer method. 

57 minutes ago, DerbyDan said:

That's nuts. Does the officer have any discretion in ridiculous cases like that?

Yes, the Imm Officer handling your application has the discretion to waive breaches to certain (not all) requirements.  For minor breaches and certainly when based on misunderstanding of the applicant, a normal Imm Officer would let you go off the hook and either waive it or let you go to fix it (e.g. making a border run or engaging a Fixer Agent). 

But unfortunately there are also officers for which every day is a bad-hair day (luckily a small minority), that seem to enjoy the opportunity to make mr rich farang squirm.  And of course there is also a corrupt minority that would propose a 'brown envelope deal' to make the problem go away.

6 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

I'm confused, you were not asked yet told your wife and all her family to say no, and they listened to you?

After hearing the rumors that Isaan villages were approached for the vaccine shots, I told my wife, that when asked by the village health helper whether we wanted the vaccine that she should say NO.

Obviously I explained to her WHY I don't want her and her sons jabbed.

The assistant abbot dying within hours after being provided the Astra Zeneca vaccine was on the Thai news a couple of days later, and she told me she was glad of me having told her to reject the vaccine offer.

At some moments in life you have to stand up for your beliefs and the parroted comments on the Forum by the defenders of the common narrative that these new rushed vaccines are 'absolutely safe' will not make me change my mind and gamble with my family's long-term health.  

12 minutes ago, sallecc said:

Does anybody knows what is the cheapest 40/400k option and minimum period? Thanks... My gf will apply for 90 days extension of her STV by the end of this month.

I did PM you a Guideline document outlining the process and with several tips on how to apply for the LMG Plan-1 (with 200K deductible) insurance, which meets the 400K/40K in/out patient health-insurance requirements. 

You can only subscribe to that policy for a full year, but the annual premium for someone under 51 years of age is only 3.900 THB.  An additional advantage of that insurance is that it does not require a medical to subscribe to it.