Any news on the inurance requirment for OA visa

[sappersrest]

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

[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

 

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.

Edited 6 hours ago by oldcpu

[DrJack54]

Excellent summary @oldcpu

[howerde]

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

Edited 6 hours ago by howerde
missing text

[Pattaya57]

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.

[DrJack54]

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/

[oldcpu]

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.

Edited 5 hours ago by oldcpu

[Rob Browder]

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. 

[Pattaya57]

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

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Pattaya57