How Does Health Insurance Work in Thailand?

There are many mistakes and pitfalls that people make in their expatriation to Thailand – forgetting health insurance is one of the biggest ones.

It’s natural to ask “how does health insurance work in Thailand?”. There are so many confusing terms, different laws, and policy features available – in this article we aim to make understanding these a little easier.

Why might I need Thai health insurance?

Thai health insurance aims to provide cover in the event that you are diagnosed with an illness or injury.

Typically, this will include any condition that occurs after you take up your insurance. What is specifically covered and to what amount will vary depending on your specific policy.

Some key insurance terms

Policy: Your insurance package. Your policy is the terms, amounts, and conditions of coverage.

Premium: The cost of your policy. This will be the annual cost unless otherwise stated.

Coverage: What will be covered by the policy.

Underwriting: The process of the insurer assessing your risk as a client. This may include questionnaires or medical tests.

Cost sharing/co-pay/excess: This feature varies between insurers, but basically means the amount you’ll have to pay per treatment. This will generally be a fixed amount paid per condition or per confinement. The higher the excess, the lower the premium.

Inpatient: Medical treatment that requires you to be admitted into the hospital, generally overnight but can be for complex day surgeries depending on your policy.

Outpatient: Shorter treatment for less serious issues. For example, this could be minor procedures, dental work, or physiotherapy.

Why is it important that expats consider insurance?

Insurance is an essential part of any good financial plan.

Having insurance provides financial security in the case of an emergency.

Having the right insurance is also essential. Expats must consider:

The amount of coverage,
The quality of care,
The cost of the premium,
The support provided,
The English proficiency of claims support staff.

How does health insurance differ from travel insurance?

It is important to make the distinction between health insurance and travel insurance.

Travel insurance will cover you for non-medical events like theft, personal liability, or trip cancellation.

Travel insurance will generally only cover you for medical emergencies such as accidents or sudden illnesses. If you have a long term illness you probably won’t be covered under travel insurance.

Further, the claims process for travel insurance is often more confrontational and onerous, making Thai health insurance the more simple option in the event of a claim (more on that below).

What are the benefits of Thai health insurance?

As touched on above, these are the main benefits of Thai health insurance:

The claims process is often much smoother.
Thai insurers partner with Thai hospitals to provide a seamless experience.
As the insurance is Thai, hospitals are more willing to provide treatment and do so more promptly as they are more comfortable that they will get paid
Most insurers offer direct billing, this means that the hospital will bill the insurer directly, thus reducing the need for you to deal with bureaucracy or part with cash.

What are the main policy features to consider?

Aside from direct billing, some other features to look for are as follows:

Insurance Excess (co-pay)

Increasing the amount that you pay in case of a hospitalization or claimable event will decrease your premium. In other words, if you’re happy to pay for less expensive treatments out-of-pocket (yourself) you’ll save a lot on your annual premiums.

Outpatient care

If you use dental services, physiotherapists, or other non-hospital healthcare regularly you might benefit from outpatient cover.

This will increase your premium but increase your access to care.

Out of country coverage

Some Thai health insurers will cover you outside of Thailand for an amount of time per year.

For example, some insurers may offer cover for the ASEAN region for several months per year.

English Language Support

The level of English language support can vary so consider this when looking at insurers.

What are some things to look out for?

The most important thing is to get appropriate cover from a reputable insurer.

There is a lot of bad press about insurers in general, however do consider that the different types of insurance all have different business models and levels of customer care.

Further, a huge amount of these issues can be fixed by proper record keeping, honesty, and working with a professional such as an insurance broker.

Want to Move to Thailand?

If you’re interested in moving to Thailand but are unsure about a few things – visas, banking, safety, scams, dating, accommodation and more.

Check out our Premium Thailand Expat Guide: The Need to Know of Moving to Thailand.

Get the guide

What about retirees and the retirement visa? Should they consider insurance even if they don’t need it?

As many of you may know, certain retirement visas in Thailand require the applicant to have Thai health insurance.

But what if you don’t need insurance?

Just because you don’t need insurance for a visa doesn’t mean that you won’t need it for medical care.

A good example of someone who might need insurance would be someone on a fixed pension with not many assets.

If this person needs expensive medical treatment they might need more money than their fixed pension can offer, but if they have insurance this could provide the money they need without needing them to shift their lifestyle or go into debt.

What about getting insurance coverage with pre-existing conditions?

Pre-existing conditions make getting cover more challenging and expensive.

Whether you can get coverage and for what price is a conversation to have with your potential insurers.

Applying for Thai Health Insurance

Applying is a fairly painless experience if you do it properly.

What do I have to do when applying?

Applying is a matter of finding the appropriate insurers, getting preliminary quotes, then choosing a policy and commencing underwriting.

Underwriting is the insurer’s way of assessing your risk as a client. If you have health concerns or questionable medical history they might require you to go through some health checks.

If you have a clean medical history and aren’t a senior you’ll probably only have to do the short questionnaire.

How long will it take to get insurance?

If you don’t require any underwriting past the basic questionnaire your application might only take one or two weeks.

If you require more advanced underwriting such as medical tests this might take longer.

Should I go direct or use a broker?

It’s our opinion that using a broker is the best way to get Thai health insurance for the following reasons:

They know each insurer and their reputations intimately,
They deal with the insurers when it comes time to make a claim; they’ve seen the other side,
They can help you understand what you should be covered for and how much coverage you need,
They, or their team, can speak Thai,
They usually don’t charge for their service, they operate on an ongoing commission taken from your annual premium.
- The cost will be absorbed by the insurer, so your insurance premiums generally shouldn’t be any more expensive.
Your broker should provide support with claims and provide recommendations for the best places for treatment.

It’s natural to be cautious around a broker, but the way we see it is when compared to a sales rep from an insurance company we’re confident that the service provided by the broker is more likely to be comprehensive and subjective.

Where to start

If you’re looking to get insurance feel free to reach out to us first. We can take a look at your overall situation and help you decide if you’d benefit from insurance. If that’s the case we can connect you with our broker of choice.

Flynn Gaffy

Based in Northern Thailand, Flynn is a Southeast Asian expat whose passion for the region translates into his work. With a holistic approach to moving offshore, Flynn considers lifestyle, opportunity and practicality to provide excellent bespoke services.