Covering Pre-existing Medical Conditions
The other day our firm was contacted by a teacher who was wanting to work abroad at an international school. She noted that the school that was interested in hiring her would not cover the pre-existing medical condition, which in this case was Diabetes. The diabetes medications are quite expensive, and the individual was at risk of incurring significant medical claims that an individual expat health plan would probably not cover.
Importance of Covering Pre-existing Medical Conditions
Some individual expat health plans can cover some pre-existing medical conditions, but they do not want to go into a situation where they know right off that the medical claims will almost certainly well exceed the premium in the first year. The individual expat health plan will probably request additional premium, exclude the condition or merely decline coverage outright.
Most group plans can cover pre-existing medical conditions because they insurer can spread the risk among healthy and not so healthy individuals. Some firms can offer coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, otherwise known as Medical History Disregarded (MHD), if you have a minimum of 10 or 20 employees, but some carriers that we work with can offer MHD for a group of only three employees.
Some expat employers will provide individual medical plans or simply ask the employees to source their coverage, but this misses the enormous benefits of having a group plan that can provide coverage with no medical underwriting and cover the employee and their dependent’s chronic conditions. If an employee has high blood pressure, it probably won’t preclude your company from hiring him or her.
If the international medical insurance plan you put this new employee on doesn’t cover previous medical conditions and the person suffers a stroke or heart attack, it is very likely the substantial claim will be denied. On the other hand, an international group insurance plan sourced by Expat Financial can usually offer full coverage for an employee’s previous medical conditions.
Having a comprehensive plan that covers an employee’s previous medical conditions will help you attract and retain expat talent. It will also protect your employee and your bottom line at claim time. To learn more about the expat group benefit plans we can source, please contact us today.