Not A Usual Run Of The Mill Policy Needed

[Konini]

We have been retired for 5 years now, travelling, staying in CM for almost 3 years and return to Australia once a year to take out a new 12 month travel insurance (medical only) policy - you can't renew this kind of policy, you can extend at laughable prices, but have to be physically in the country to apply for a new policy. My husband has just turned 50 which means we qualify for the retirement visa, but Australian law says we can't draw on his superannuation until he is 55 and I would rather not put 800,000k in a bank here at 3% unless we have no other option - apart from the bad return, I don't know if banks are government backed - it would be a fair chunk of money to lose should the bank go poop. Because of this, we are alternating 12 month non immigration o visa's for extended tourism with triple entry tourist visas. Our problem as I see it is residency. We still lodge tax returns in Australia, which to my thinking makes us officially resident of Australia even though we only spend 3 or 4 weeks of every year there. Whilst the insurance we have covers us for accidents an emergencies, planning ahead I would like to have an insurance policy here which would cover us for elective as well as emergency incidents, but our residence status makes this a little unusual. One thing that worries me with the coverage here is the rising cost with age - in Australia the law states no difference in price based on age, while here as we get older the annual payments seem to increase to a very large amount if we should live for another 20 years - which by the way is the limit (70 years old) of our 'backpacker' 12 month medical only insurance from Aus @ 26,693 per annum.

Should we keep on doing what we're doing and self-insure for any non-emergency treatment? My head is saying yes, but I still have a nagging doubt - as we get older, things will likely start to fall apart, just the price of getting old.

In the meantime, we have a more immediate problem - due to a change in the way we travel, we will be going to Australia in January.or February next year. Our insurance expires in a couple of weeks. We are going to need some kind of comprehensive cover for 3 to 4 months (Thailand only) and I have no idea where to start with that one - our insurance company quoted 85% of the cost of the original policy to extend to February which is just a joke. Will our residency status affect a local or expat short term policy?

Sorry there are so many questions, I've been meaning to sort them out one by one for a long time, but never actually gotten around to it.

Thanks in advance for any tips, hints, answers or solutions.

[tonydabbs]

Our problem as I see it is residency.

If you have an address in Thailand you are a resident of Thailand.

This will allow you to purchase health insurance in Thailand.

but our residence status makes this a little unusual

No it doesn't.

in Australia the law states no difference in price based on age

That is because the insurance is tax payer supported. It is not here.

Will our residency status affect a local or expat short term policy?

Health insurance is annual renewable coverage. A short term policy is travel insurance.

Will our residency status affect a local or expat short term policy?

Travel insurance will provide up to 6 months coverage. But you must purchase it from outside the country that you are traveling to.

[Konini]

Our problem as I see it is residency.

If you have an address in Thailand you are a resident of Thailand.

This will allow you to purchase health insurance in Thailand.

but our residence status makes this a little unusual

No it doesn't.

in Australia the law states no difference in price based on age

That is because the insurance is tax payer supported. It is not here.

Will our residency status affect a local or expat short term policy?

Health insurance is annual renewable coverage. A short term policy is travel insurance.

Will our residency status affect a local or expat short term policy?

Travel insurance will provide up to 6 months coverage. But you must purchase it from outside the country that you are traveling to.

Thank you for your information Tony, it really is appreciated. We have an address, serviced apartment that we spend about 10 months of each year in, but not the whole year. Would that make a difference?

Thanks too for the private messages I got in relation to this, I'm sifting my way through things.

I think the gap from now (our policy expired yesterday) until February is going to be a case of self insuring and crossing our fingers as we would have to leave Thailand to get travel insurance if it has to be taken in another country (which makes sense). That's if conditions below are in our favour, if not we will have to take out private cover here. We will be coming back in on a non-immigration visa, which kind of validates or residency.

The Private Health Insurance Industry isn't backed by the taxpayer in Australia, only the free government Medicare - it's just a law (and I think it's a good one) that no commercial or mutual or non-profit fund health insurer can discriminate by age; if you want to buy policy A it costs $X regardless of you age. It may exclude pre-existing conditions, but can't by law be a different price - whether you're 21 or 91, the premium must be the same. I like that system, don't know if it's standard in all western countries, but I think it should be. That must be the result of being brought up in a socialist state (UK).

I've just found out that we are unable to do back to back travel insurance - our policy states that you must be an Australian Resident and that you must physically be in the country when you apply for the policy, but I've asked our company the question (under a different name) if I can go backpacking for 12 months, come back to Aus for a couple of weeks for a wedding, then take out another 12 month backpacking policy. I say backpacker policy because it's medical cover only, we don't own enough to care about a stolen suitcase, and if our flight is delayed so be it. I have had a lot of difficulty getting an answer to this, asking how long I would have to remain in Aus to apply for a new policy, but have been told that I can't only stay 2 weeks and apply for a new one. I'm going to spend some time sifting through the small print again. I found out last year that if you are out of the country for more than 3 months, you are no longer entitled to the government funded Medicare. You have to prove that you are back in Australia to stay, with a letter from an employer, a copy of a lease or property purchase or a utility bill in your name. This is despite the fact that we still lodge tax returns (it works to our advantage) which includes the annual Medicare levy (we don't actually pay the levy because we get refunds not bills, very complex tax-paid dividends under the system). I'm assuming the insurance company is applying the same principle, although I didn't find it last time I looked at the fine print; I used to write fine print so I know how to decipher it and find all of the little exemptions. I am getting increasingly frustrated with the person on the other end of the email - she wants me phone (so she can sell) but I've told her I'm away on a business trip and have unstable phone lines and limited access to internet. She just won't give me a number of days, weeks, or months, but I'm going to keep on at her. My last email, this morning, was a little terse - she said I didn't understand what she was saying, I told her I only had one question and it's quite simple. I am going to be taking 2 years off work to travel, and later this year I will take out your 12 month policy. I will be back in Australia 11 months later. I then want to continue my holiday for a further year. Please tell me how many days/weeks/months I need to be physically in Australia for before I can apply for a new policy. I hope she answers, as said I was a little terse, but we're up to 6 replies from my original question and as I say I'm going to keep going at it until I get an answer.

The policy we have is perfect for us really - covers emergencies, we self insure for minor elective and if something big comes up we will go back to Aus to live (for however long) and we're back on the books for Medicare cover, or if it's really bad the policy includes medivac back to Aus, (we can get a friend to draw up a lease agreement for us renting a room in her house). We're not cheating the system, we paid enough taxes over the years to be entitled to it. If i can get her to put in writing that we can take out back to back policies, we may stick with that - I'll write another email in March from myself, hopefully get another admin worker to reply and get it in writing that although we've only been back in Aus for a couple of weeks, can I take another 12 month policy, otherwise I'm definitely going to have to take Expat insurance to cover anything.

Thanks for reading, I'm partly thinking out loud, partly worrying and partly rambling.