What is medical evacuation and repatriation insurance?
As a citizen or an expat, focusing on your safety and security should be one of your primary goals. However, medical emergencies and requirements can happen at any time. To ensure that you receive the correct medical help if faced with an injury or illness, you must include medical evacuation insurance in your health insurance plan. Under a medical evacuation and repatriation insurance plan, individuals who face a grave injury or fall severely ill, can be transported to another city in the same country or to another country to receive better medical treatment. The transportation process is followed only if the treatment required is not available in their current place of residence where the incident occurred. An emergency medical evacuation is usually covered in health insurance plans. Though a medical evacuation insurance cover is important for all, it is even more crucial for any expat based in a remote area that is not equipped with adequate health facilities.
Medical evacuation, which is also commonly known as a medevac plan, is usually divided into two types:
- domestic evacuation plan and international medical evacuation.
As the name suggests, under a domestic evacuation plan, you will be shifted to a hospital within the same country. The transportation could be carried out by land, sea, or air. An international evacuation plan also offers the same services as a domestic evacuation plan. However, in the international plan, you will be shifted to a hospital outside of a country.
Medevac insurance is different from repatriation insurance. So, what is repatriation insurance? The primary difference lies in the place of transportation. Unlike in a medevac where you are transported to the nearest hospital, in repatriation insurance, you will be transported to your home country for any ongoing or urgent medical treatment. If you happen to fall under such circumstances in a foreign land and you do not have repatriation insurance, you might end up spending a huge sum of money. Hence, to always stay ahead, when it comes to safety, you must include medevac and repatriation insurance alongside your health insurance plan (if it does not already cover them) to avoid uninsured and exorbitant medical evacuation costs and medical repatriation costs from your own pocket.
Medical Evacuation
As already mentioned above, emergencies do not knock and come. They can surprise us at any moment. While being a victim of such a situation can already be a painful ordeal, the thoughts concerning the costs of the treatments can be stressful too. We do not want you to compromise on your safety due to a lack of facilities or high expenses. Coverage includes transportation to the nearest centre of medical excellence if the treatment is not available locally in an emergency. Coverage is even provided for transportation to the nearest hospital in another country. What’s more, coverage for return costs and taxi fares too. You can take full advantage of all such services and recover in no time.
Medical Repatriation
Medical repatriation insurance coverage is essential for expatriates. If as an expatriate you need urgent medical treatment that is available in your country of habitual residence or nationality, then medical repatriation will help in covering such costs. It provides coverage to the country of habitual residence or nationality, return tickets to the place from where the expat was evacuated, and taxi fares.
Summary of Benefits:
- Medical / Hospital
- Emergency Evacuation
- Internal and Overseas Transfer
- Overseas Medical Expenses – In-patient & Outpatient
- Additional Expenses
- Physiotherapy and other therapy services including Occupational & Rehabilitation
- Ancillary Services
- Maternity
- Optical
- Dental
- Funeral
Travel / Emergency Assistance:
Insurers usually have Travel / Emeregncy assistance provided on a Medical Expenses and Repatriation policy.
Group Healthcare/Medical Scheme
A group scheme is available for employees to consider for their employees (which can also incorporate life and personal accident policy. These can be tailored to suit needs and budget requirements.
Please talk to Wereck Insurance Brokers for further information.
WHAT IS NOT COVERED
Like any other policies medical insurance contain policy exclusions, a few major ones highlighted below:
- Preexisting or illness/conditions
- Policy Age limit/restrictions
- Dependents over the age of 18 years and not full time students
- Intentional self-injury, suicide/attempted suicide, alcoholism, use of drugs not prescribed, by a physician
- Work related injuries which fall under workers compensation policy or any other health fund
- HIV
- War
- Policy deductible/excess
Please consult us for any further clarification.
As Insurance is a complex subject, please talk to us now for professional advice and to make sure your level of coverage is appropriate, adequate, and sufficient to your requirements.
The List of Risks or the range of insurances available is not exhaustive, if there are any particular risks that are possibly unique to your type of business and/or for any specific or special requirements, please seek our assistance and guidance.