As was reported a  few months ago, there was to be a reduction of the amount of cover required for renwal  of OA visa .Any idea when this is to take place

3 hours ago, sappersrest said:

As was reported a  few months ago, there was to be a reduction of the amount of cover required for renwal  of OA visa .Any idea when this is to take place

 

My recollection (for type-OA) the following.

 

Originally, in year 2019 (?) the policy introduced where:

• For In-patient: health insurance policy must have coverage at least 400,000 Thai Baht per policy year.
• For Out-patient: health insurance policy must have coverage at least 40,000 Thai Baht per policy year.

Then, around year 2021 or 2022 this was changed to: In case of Thai insurance policy: the applicant must have a photocopy of medical insurance policy, which expressly covers medical treatments of general sickness and COVID-19, with minimum coverage of 100,000 USD or 3,000,000 THB. That was a MASSIVE increase.

 

and then either last year or this year (possibly the reduction you are thinking of), it was decreased back to

• For In-patient: health insurance policy must have coverage at least 400,000 Thai Baht per policy year.
• For Out-patient: health insurance policy must have coverage at least 40,000 Thai Baht per policy year.

 

I don't recall reading of any other reductions.   Perhaps others will chime in if they heard of such.

 

Many of us, dissatisfied with the above insurance being required to be from the Thai branch of a Health Insurance company (where we already had superior health insurance from outside of Thailand), deliberately left Thailand without a re-entry permit on our Type-OA visas to invalidate such, and then we re-entered Visa Exempt and immediately applied for a Type-O that has no such Health Insurance requirements.

 

My hope is that the BoI LTR visa Health Insurance requirements (where foreign health insurance companies are accepted if one can provide documents to BoI's satisfaction) or self health insurance ($100k US equiv in a bank account anywhere in the world) are acceptable will be eventually applied to the Type-OA visa ... but that is just a hope.  The more flexible BoI approach with LTR visa, is very helpful especially for those of us who are into our 70s or older.

Excellent summary @oldcpu

3 hours ago, sappersrest said:

As was reported a  few months ago, there was to be a reduction of the amount of cover required for renwal  of OA visa .Any idea when this is to take place

Nothing has changed yet it is still 3 million baht coverage needed, there is supposed to be a change  back to 400 000 baht inpatient cover/ 40 000 baht outpatient cover,  earlier in the year they said the time frame  for introduction  was Sept -Dec they are also looking at the requirements of the retirement visas

22 minutes ago, oldcpu said:

 

and then either last year or this year (possibly the reduction you are thinking of), it was decreased back to

• For In-patient: health insurance policy must have coverage at least 400,000 Thai Baht per policy year.
• For Out-patient: health insurance policy must have coverage at least 40,000 Thai Baht per policy year.

I don't recall reading of any other reductions.   Perhaps others will chime in if they heard of such.

 

The OA Visa insurance never reduced back to 400,000/40,000 like you say happened above.

 

When they announced the new DTV in June they also said there would be changes to OA Visa insurance around September. To my knowledge it never happened and a quick look on Thai Embassy sites shows it still listed at 3 million baht insurance required.

OP, the 12 month extension requirements from a Non O-A and Non O are almost the same apart from the insurance requirement.

You may wish to kill off the Non O-A.

Here is a thread that outlines that process....

https://aseannow.com/topic/1304442-non-o-a-extension-or-better-options/

Thanks all for the clarification that the reduction back to 400k THB  (in patient)/40k THB (out patient) is coming (soon ?? ) , but not there yet.   ...  I confess, my being on an LTR visa now, I don't track this as much as I used to.

 

Its a bit puzzling to me why they are waiting what seems to be a long time to make it official, given that it was announced around the same time as the new DTV visa and at the same time as the time duration changes to Visa Exempt.

2 hours ago, oldcpu said:

Its a bit puzzling to me why they are waiting what seems to be a long time to make it official, given that it was announced around the same time as the new DTV visa and at the same time as the time duration changes to Visa Exempt.

The proposed changes to other visas may be getting done as a batch - and is not yet finalized. 

Makes you wonder why they insist on 3 million baht insurance for a 1 year OA Visa but are happy to give someone a 5 year DTV with no insurance and no money in Thai bank

 

Back when they announced the change from 30 to 60 day Visa exempt from 57 countries to over 90, and the rollout of the destination Thailand visa, along with the Ed plus Visa they did say they were going to lower the requirements for OA insurance from 3.5 million baht down to 400,000 again but I have not heard anything about it since then.

 

I was with an elderly friend two weeks ago to renew his OA extension for the 7th year and he was required to show 100K USD insurance (which he had)

I'm not 100% convinced that it is a reduction in Health Insurance requirements as although the inpatient amount has been reduced, they've re-introduced the (IMHO Pointless ) Outpatients requirement. 

 

Has anybody who has insurance covering the current requirements got a quote for changing to meet the new requirements?

 

FWIW If it were me, I wouldn't reduce my Inpatient cover below $100K anyway so would end up paying more to add on the Outpatients.

Shame as my visa renewal is in 2 weeks just my luck it will change the day after.

1 hour ago, Mike Teavee said:

I'm not 100% convinced that it is a reduction in Health Insurance requirements as although the inpatient amount has been reduced, they've re-introduced the (IMHO Pointless ) Outpatients requirement. 

 

Have they also re-introduced the requirement for international insurers to sign a certificate confirming compliance with some obscure Thai cabinet resolution as in the case of the original 400k/40k version, thus largely restricting policies deemed acceptable to rip-off ones issued by TGIA members in practice?

 

20 minutes ago, OJAS said:

 

Have they also re-introduced the requirement for international insurers to sign a certificate confirming compliance with some obscure Thai cabinet resolution as in the case of the original 400k/40k version, thus largely restricting policies deemed acceptable to rip-off ones issued by TGIA members in practice?

 

The only change announced was to reduce the Health Insurance requirement from the current 3M BHT, to 400K inpatient, 40K outpatient between Sept - Dec 2024.