How does your company insure older expat employees?

Has your company looked into how it’s expat benefit plan covers your older expatriate employees? It’s a question worth asking. Expat employers are often relying upon older employees for expatriate positions that need to be filled by often senior level executives or specialized employees whose skills require an employee with extensive experience that only an older employee can provide.

Many industries are faced with an ageing workforce these days and struggle to find and retain the best employees possible. With older expat employees, it is more likely that they may suffer from a pre-existing or chronic medical condition. These senior employees may also be highly paid and entitled to more substantial amounts of life and disability coverage.

Older employees can be valuable expat employees

Often, the best person for the job posting overseas is an employee who is in their 60s or even 70s. This is quite common for the mining industry which often has to fill positions in engineering that require an employee who is most likely in their 50s or 60s. Unfortunately, some insurance plans from less experienced brokers have their clients with plans that will not offer coverage for expat employees past age 60, 65 or 70. Additionally, some expat group insurance plans will exclude pre-existing medical conditions.

What can you do to cover your older expat workforce adequately?

So what can be done if your current global benefit plan is not adequately covering or can’t cover your older expatriate employees? Well, it first makes sense to work with an expat insurance specialist firm such as Expat Financial, which is a division of TFG Global Insurance Solutions Ltd. We are very experienced in working with clients from around the world, which require a global health insurance plan for their group of expat employees or even just one person posted overseas.

Global medical coverage solutions for older expats employees

If you have a group of expats and your organization has over 30 employees globally, we may be able to source a plan that can usually cover your expat employees (minimum 2) without any medical questions and fully covering pre-existing medical conditions. The global medical insurance for some of these plans have no age limit, so we can still cover that 70-year-old employee and dependent. We recommend global medical plans that will fully cover pre-existing and chronic medical conditions for both the employee and their dependents.

Some HR managers think that they can reduce their risk by screening out expats with health issues with a medical exam before being hired, but this may not be legally acceptable with employment laws, you may be excluding excellent employees with health issues. Additionally, you won’t be able to fully screen out all conditions that would exclude an employee. Finally, the employee’s dependent might have a medical condition that you can’t screen for. Again, it makes sense for a group expat health plan to cover pre-existing medical conditions fully.

What about non-medical benefits for older expats?

For the Life/AD&D, the benefit levels usually reduce at age 69 and may terminate at 75 depending on the insurer. Long Term Disability will cease at age 65 or 70, but this is not usually an issue for most expat employers. For such pooled expat coverage, it makes sense to go with an insurance company that has a high non-evidence maximum, which is the amount of coverage that can be provided without medical evidence. An expat’s age does not usually impact dental and evacuation coverage.

What if our company has only one expat employee?

For individual expats, we have access to a large number of global medical providers who can cover a single expatriate over age 70 for example. However, the employee will be subject to medical underwriting, and it is possible that he or she may be declined, may have a condition excluded or may experience a premium increase. As an international insurance brokerage, we have access to a wide array of insurance providers who can underwrite many pre-existing conditions for individual expats.

So, if your company is employing expatriate employees, especially expats who are over 50, you should contact us today to discuss how your existing global benefit plan is meeting their needs along with the premium rates that they are being charged.