818Pilot

Worried about elephant pants but selling knock off brand name clothing, watches, shoes, purses etc is perfectly fine and doesn’t need to be looked into?

I’m from the US, retired last year and I’ll share what I did to open my primary bank account so I could deposit the 800k to get my Non-O. As you know since you’ve lived here longer than me, things change weekly. I arrived Visa Exempt and purposely booked an AirBnb for over a month. I made sure when booking that the host would file a TM30, which they did. I then got the TM30 slip and to make life easy I paid 500b to have an agent get me a residence certificate. I actually had them get me two, 1 for banking and 1 for my drivers license. With the residence certificate in hand I went to Kbank in Chiang Mai, dressed nicely (no shorts or flip flops, although I’m not sure it matters) had a nice conversation with the manager explaining that I retired, was applying for my non-o visa but to do so I needed to open an account so I can fund it. About 30 minutes later and 300 signatures later (lol) I left with a new account, online access and debit card. Hope this helps

Hi Richard007, you're welcome and I also noticed that it was under the corporate tab. I guess I figured if it applied there then it would apply to individuals too (Might be a bad assumption on my part). I just recently moved here, so like you, I'm looking for a policy that's not Thai backed and offers good coverage. I'm 57 and a local agent offered April/LMG thai policy with 3.5m Bhat coverage at around 87k bhat a year, which i didn't think was bad until I had him put in what it would cost me at 60 since rate increases are every 5 years here. The increase went to about 120k bhat a year, which then made me consider either Cigna Global or Aprils international (France) policy. Medical is so much cheaper here then in the US, but I recently had a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles that put me in the hospital at Cedars for 10 days and my US bill is already over 600k USD. While my US insurance will never pay that amount, it got me thinking if some did happen here that was serious, would 3.5m Bhat really be enough.

I had the same concerns as I live in CM and Bangkok Hospital is the closest to me and I currently use them for Physical and Occupational Therapy for an accident in the US (Out of pocket, but only $26 an hour compared to over $100 in Los Angeles). I explored their site and found this, https://www.april-international.com/en/corporate/services/healthcare-networks . I then checked what network Bangkok Hospital is with and they are part of Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (BDMS) so it is in network according to their link above. You may want to check the others, but BDSM has the following as part of their group. Bangkok Hospital Phyathai Hospitals Group BNH Hospital Samitivej Hospital Group Paolo Hospital Group Royal Hospital Group (Cambodia) Hope this helps!

I understand a lot of Thais can’t afford high quality gear such as a Shoei helmet etc, but, but anything is better then nothing. It kills me when I see people, not just Thais, riding with no helmet, gloves, in flip flops, shorts and/or a dress! My recent event: I flew back to LA on June 26 for a few weeks and ended up having a motorcycle vs Car accident on July 1. I was on a City street when a car illegally turned in front of me and I was only going about 40 kph. I’m thankful I had a good quality (shoei) helmet and gloves with palm sliders on or things could have been a lot worse since I flew 7 meters over the car hood. As it is, I broke 7 bones between my arm and hand, two brakes were compound fractures (bones sticking out of your skin for those that didn’t know the term), 10 days at Cedars Sinai hospital, 2 surgeries, 1 skin graft and I’m doing 2 hours of therapy every other day. Cost of surgeries and hospital in the US so far has been $554,756 or 19,600,000 bhat. While I understand the cost would have been substantially less here, I’m still paying 2,000b every other day here for occupational and physical therapy and still need. one to two more surgeries. My point is, even with good gear what happened to me is life changing and had I not had a helmet it could have been life over! As I tell everyone, but the best you can afford as wearing something is better then nothing. Even those cheap helmets at BigC provide a tiny amount of protection over just your head!

I just converted my visa exempt to Non-o in CM and it was painless. When they issued the initial 90 day non-o, I applied for a single re-entry so I could head back to the US to take care of stuff for my perm move. Some will disagree with this choice, but I still got insurance, and will keep it until I don't fell it's necessary, doesn't pay for things, or becomes incredibly expensive where saving the premiums would be a better choice. At 57, I'm fortunate that prices are reasonable and compared to the US, I'd say they are very reasonable. I just don't want to be mandated to buy it.