Etaoin Shrdlu

It may be that WRLife is a licensed insurance company, but I can't find any information online other than their own website and FB page. Their website refers to a "general insurance license" in addition to insurance and reinsurance brokerage licenses, so perhaps they are indeed an insurer in addition to being a broker. If they are actually an insurance company, I would want to know more about their financial status, preferably a rating from Standard and Poor or AM Best.

Which insurance company actually issued the policy?

The product appears to be a whole life insurance product issued by Muang Thai Life Assurance Company with a medical coverage extension. Kasikorn Bank is the insurance broker. Limits on offer are very low, with the maximum set at baht 500,000. This is not going to be anywhere near adequate for serious illnesses or accidents. Americans have tax reporting requirements with non-US whole life policies that are potentially quite onerous. Some Thai insurers may not provide whole life cover to foreigners. If you are looking for adequate medical cover and don't want life insurance, you should probably look elsewhere.

I don't think the WRLife website does a proper job of addressing the issues I raised in my original post. While it does mention license numbers, it does not state which authorities have granted those licenses. My guess is that those are UK licenses, but that's not clear from the website. AIS's role is also not clear. WRLife's payment instructions direct policyholders to send Thai baht payments to AIS. If AIS accepts insurance premiums and remits to insurers, this may have the effect of putting them in the role of performing insurance brokerage services for which they may need to be licensed by the OIC. Are they? Then there's the issue of which insurers they place their clients' business with. No mention that I can find. WRLife may be completely above board and the best solution available, but I would need more information before I would do business with them.

In addition to the Asian size versus US size issue, I think the rag trade in general skews to a younger demographic, say the age group of 16 to 34 or so. These are the people who buy new clothing based upon fashion trends that change each season or each year and who won't wear a piece of clothing once it is perceived as last year's fashion. Once you're older and have other priorities (and a dad bod), new, trendy clothes aren't important and the mass-market clothing industry knows that.

This would raise an interesting issue if Russia flew a plane that was in default on its lease from a Western lessor and the lessor sought to arrest the plane in Thailand. I think Sri Lanka went through this and released the plane in question as Sri Lanka depends upon Russian energy exports. I wonder what Thailand would do in a similar situation since the rehabilitation of THAI may depend upon the goodwill of Western lessors.

As far as I can determine, WRLife is an insurance broker, not an insurance company. If that's the case, then it is no surprise that a local insurance broker would not know of them or not prefer to work with them. They appear to be registered in the UK and I have not been able to find any reference to them being licensed by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner here. They seem to have a relationship with a company that provides medical evacuation services in Thailand that is part of a large Thai hospital group and they appear to use it as a conduit for some premium payments. If I were seeking a quote from them, I would ask for a copy of their insurance brokerage license, the name(s) and domicile(s) of the insurer(s) they work with and also a scope of service agreement so that I can determine what services they provide and to what degree I could count on their help if I had a dispute under a policy that they had arranged on my behalf. If they hesitate to provide any of the above, I would go elsewhere.

Have a similar issue getting my son's first DL. He'll finish his lessons this month, but could not get an appointment at the nearest DLT office until after he goes back to university in September. Called around and found another DLT office that had slots available this month. You might try other DLT offices in your area.

Label on the can says 4% alcohol. Haven't tried it yet.

Not in Lake Wobegon. All the children there are above average.

Just don't listen to David Berkowitz's dog.

Back in 2019 the government allowed hospitals under the Ministry of Public Health to implement a three-tiered pricing scheme, but did not require that they do so. The baseline tier was for Thai citizens and citizens of neighboring countries (mostly migrant workers). Foreigners with work permits and those with some other specific types of non-immigrant status could be charged a surcharge. All other foreigners with non-immigrant status, including retirees and tourists, could be charged a yet higher surcharge. I believe the key is immigration status and not the type of documentation presented. A passport should provide the necessary info, but the pink card or yellow tabien baan perhaps not. I have not been able to find how permanent residents fit into these classifications as the two surcharge tiers as presented by the media appear to apply only to foreigners with non-immigrant status. I have not seen the full text of the government announcement, so the answer for those here on non-quota immigrant status (PR) may be there somewhere, I don't know the extent to which this pricing scheme has been implemented.

Many travel insurance policies will cover trip cancellation or delay if the cause is an otherwise covered accident, illness or event occurring during a specified time period prior to departure (often 30 days) and which necessitates the cancellation or delay. There are insurers domiciled in Thailand that can provide such coverage, but I'd suggest you use a good insurance broker to find an insurer with a policy that best suits your needs.

I think i heard that it was not uncommon for an employer to require employment contracts to be signed by the employee when the employee was physically in the employer's country in order to avoid the possibility that the contract might come under the jurisdiction of the courts of the employee's home country in the event of a dispute. Not sure if this is actually the case, however.

Yes, it was from 2018. Seems I misread the date on the return label. Thanks for the detailed explanation of the nixie label. I could not imagine that the SSA's PO box would be vacant, so I would agree with you that it was probably a glitch in the USPS system.

I have had Thai Post registered airmail sent to SSA using SSA's envelope returned by the US Postal Service stating it could not be forwarded. This was in 2019 and thus pre-Covid. I note that this was for form 7161 and not form 7162.

I believe you would most likely be treated the same as a brand-new applicant and any pre-existing conditions would be excluded. Whether the exclusions would be for a finite period of time or permanent would depend upon the conditions in question and Aetna's underwriting guidelines. Use a good broker to help you navigate this issue or explore alternatives.

Yes, when we signed up, we stopped after a toll gate and went to the office off to the left. Took about 20 minutes or so and wasn't very complicated. Registration book, ID card and a few baht. They may have taken a photo as well. Not very complicated.

I don't believe there is an expiry date for the funds loaded into Easy Pass. We've had it for many years and funds have never been lost to expiry. Here's a link to EXAT's website. It should give you all the info you need to get signed up for Easy Pass: https://www.exat.co.th/en/ Shouldn't require much more than the vehicle registration book, an ID card/passport and a few baht. You may also want to look into signing up for M-Flow which allows one to proceed through toll facilities without having to stop: https://mflowthai.com/mflow M-Flow may work with a credit or debit card, but I think it can also be linked to the Easy Pass/MPass account.

Upon further reflection, I think the Affordable Care Act in the US also limits insurers' ability to exclude pre-existing conditions. But I'm not familiar with the details.

I think there was an article in a local paper in the past few days that mentioned a medical records database being set up by the government that could be accessed by medical service providers and others with a legitimate interest in this information. The article did not mention how far along this project is, but it would seem to have the potential to allow insurers to easily access medical info on anyone who has sought treatment at a participating facility.

Meant to say RZ350 as they were called in the US.

My comments above are based upon my professional experience with insurers domiciled and licensed in Thailand, both Thai insurers and the Thai operations of multinational insurers. I am not familiar with French insurance regulations or the policies and proposal forms that April France would use. I assume that a French insurer would be bound by French (and EU?) consumer and insurance regulations. I don't know how those regulations would be affected, if at all, when the policyholder is located outside of France or the EU. But the duty of disclosure is not unique to Thailand. It is an essential part of the formation of a contract of insurance and is roughly the same in all countries. I suppose it is possible that in some jurisdictions an insurer's ability to request certain information or deny claims based upon non-disclosure may be partially limited by regulation, but I am not aware of any specific examples of this.

I urge caution in this area. Under the Thai Civil and Commercial Code, the proposer's obligation is to disclose any material fact without limitation. I don't believe this requirement is over-ridden by an insurer putting a timeframe for disclosure on their proposal form or on how questions may be worded, especially if reference is made anywhere on the proposal form to the Civil and Commercial Code's disclosure requirements as is often the case. At the end of the day, the document that sets out the terms of cover is the policy and not the proposal form. Unless the policy limits the pre-existing condition exclusion to the scope of disclosure mentioned in the proposal, there may be problems in the event of a claim. In effect, the proposal form is inviting potential non-disclosure but at the same time the insurer has a get-out-of-jail-free card under the policy as well as under the Civil and Commercial Code. At the very least, one should make inquiries of the insurer to fully understand the intent, both in terms of the proposal form and the policy itself and get their answer in writing from someone in authority. But absent this, my advice would be to ignore any time limitation set out in the proposal form and disclose anything that may be material to the underwriter's decision-making. In my experience, there's a modest down-side in over-disclosure but significant risk in material non-disclosure.

Owned a 1985 RD350 back in the US when it was new. Same colors as yours, but slightly different graphics. Sold it in 1987 and got a Kawasaki 600R Ninja. Back in the 1970s had a Yamaha R5.