Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Find out if there is guaranteed renewability, and if so, at standard rates. Not all policies
offer this, and if for some reason you become too expensive over the year, they may refuse
to renew your insurance at the end of the year. Alternatively they may jack up the price
as you're now deemed a risk. Additionally, many expats have found that though they were
happy with the first year of a given company's insurance, their premiums jumped dramatic-
ally for the following year for no apparent reason.
Know the lifetime limit of your policy. Some policies offer lifetime limits rather than
annual limits. If you have a major medical incident, $500,000 of your lifetime limit of
$1,000,000 may be used up in a few months. This may be fine if you just plan to use the
policy while you're living in China and intend to return to a different insurer in your home
country in the near future. Just check that usage of your lifetime limit won't affect your
ability to sign with a subsequent insurer.
Know the individual allowances for your policy and how they relate to costs in Beijing.
A bed at Beijing United Family, for example, cost around RMB7,000 per night at the time
of writing. Examples of payments in the past for Beijing expats include: RMB150,000
(US$24,000) for a broken ankle; RMB400,000 (US$64,200) for a back injury; and RMB2
million (US$321,000) for the evacuation and repatriation of a healthy man who simply fell
down a set of escalators and sustained a severe traumatic injury.
Find out if the company operates with a moratorium or by underwriting. If it's a morator-
ium, the company may be unlikely to pay for a condition, such as cancer, that may be pre-
existing but unknown at the time you purchase your policy. This moratorium will last for a
given period. If the condition arises within that period they won't cover you. Underwriting,
however, assesses you at the time of signing and agrees to cover you for what is known at
that time.
Find out if your policy is for expatriates only. Some policies will not cover you once you
leave China. This may or may not be fine by you, but you should also know how or if they
will refund any prepaid amount of money.
As for what to get, that's very personal. “At the very minimum you should get inpatient
care plus repatriation,” says Feshchenko. This said, some insurers are more willing to repat-
riate than others, even if this is included in your policy. FrontierMEDEX, for example, can
provide basic packages that include emergency medical evacuation. Given that you'll be in
China, you might also want to check if traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is covered.
