If your job or volunteer work has taken you overseas, you may need to provide your own health insurance while you’re living there. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get a health plan that covers all of the medical care you may need without being forced to pay for coverage you don’t need? I found a great medical plan that covers all types of expatriates traveling or living abroad for over a year. It has guaranteed renewability and no age limits. Read on to learn more about it.
The plan is from Cigna Global, which offers a worldwide network of over 1 million hospitals and physicians and many Direct-Pay agreements. Their customer service is excellent! It is a plan designed to cover you for a long time, such as when you reside in a country as an expatriate. This is amazing health insurance overseas for growing families, international workers, volunteers, and missionaries; those who work with NGOs, Nonprofits, humanitarian, relief and development, churches, and faith-based organizations.
This Cigna Global Expat Insurance plan has great benefits so you can rest assured that you and your family are protected. But the best part is that you can design your own plan with just the benefits you require, and without the coverage you don’t need. Here’s how it works.
What are the Cigna Global Expat Insurance Core Benefits?
You start with Cigna Global’s core benefits. They offer three levels of essential core coverages to choose from: Silver, Gold and Platinum. The Silver plan offers an annual maximum benefit of $1,000,000, the Gold plan offers a $2,000,000 annual maximum benefit, and the Platinum plan provides an unlimited benefit.
All of the plans have standard medical benefits to cover hospitalizations, inpatient psychiatric care, cancer, and distinctively, newborn care as well! Maternity benefits are included with the Gold and Platinum plans.
What are the Cigna Global Expat Insurance Optional Benefits?
Once you’ve selected the core benefit package for your Cigna Global Expat Insurance plan, you can choose from a menu of optional benefits to tailor your expatriate medical insurance to fit you and your family. These additional options include stronger outpatient cover, an international health and wellbeing add on, as well as international medical evacuation cover. Here are the options:
International Outpatient: This module is for expenses from lab work, doctors visits, prescriptions, physical therapy, immunizations, as well as annual routine for children and well child tests. The higher the level of coverage, the lower the caps are on some benefits.
International Medical Evacuation: This coverage is highly recommended for any type of international travel. International medical evacuation insurance is designed to provide transportation to the nearest adequate medical facility for necessary treatment. This is if there is no local treatment available for the immediate medical necessity. Adding this module will provide you with not only international medical evacuation insurance, but also repatriation of mortal remains, compassionate visit, and more.
All of the benefits are the same for every level of coverage. Even though great hospitals may be in your destination, they may not be able to handle every type of medical condition. I would never want any individual or their families to be stuck with a medical evacuation bill! Please be sure to contact the insurance company in this event so that they can arrange and pay for the evacuation.
International Health and Wellbeing: This is a wonderful addition to support overall health and wellbeing! It is a rich resource that gives you access for health screenings and check-ups, physical exams, counseling, dietetic consultations, and online education and programs. All of this can be included to help you get the most out of your health insurance overseas.
International Vision and Dental: General coverage for tests, preventative care, and some coverage for treatment and materials relating to Dental and Vision. Various waiting periods apply for specific provisions.
U.S. Coverage: Having U.S. coverage is very important for those with travels to the U.S.A., and for U.S. citizens. Coverage up to three months per year is available on this plan. Even if a U.S. citizen doesn’t plan to come back to the U.S., if a serious medical condition occurs, they sometimes go back to the U.S. for care. Citizens of other countries traveling outside the U.S. will save money by not selecting this module.
Maternity: Maternity benefits are not available on the Silver plan, but are included on the Gold and Platinum. It is great to think about maternity coverage if you may have a child in the future. There is a ten-month waiting period before maternity benefits are available. The Gold plan provides up to $7,000 and the Platinum plan provides up to $14,000 for childbirth, inpatient and outpatient treatment, and obstetricians’ and midwives’ fees. Complications from maternity are also covered at $14,000 on the Gold and $28,000 on Platinum.
What are the Meanings of Medical Insurance Terms?
A lot of people don’t understand insurance lingo, and it doesn’t help that the definition of some terms change and new terms are introduced over time. So, here is a glossary of medical insurance terms that Cigna Global provided to us:
Admission (Admits): An overnight confinement to a facility.
Brand Name: The proprietary or trade name of the medication.
Catastrophic (Cat): All members who have accumulated payments in excess of a specified threshold.
Chronic: Defined as an illness or sickness that is not curable but may be controlled with treatment.
Coinsurance: A defined percentage of the covered charges for services rendered. A health plan may pay 80% of the cost of covered services, and a member pays 20%.
Copayment: Predetermined fees for medical services covered by a benefit plan, which are paid by the member at the time of service.
Cost Share Benefit Plan: Arrangement requiring that the participant pay a portion of the costs. This includes copayments, coinsurance and deductibles.
Expat: US citizen working outside the U.S..
Facility: A site where health care services are delivered including hospitals, convalescent units, skilled nursing facilities, and birthing centers.
Facility Outpatient: Refers to services and costs that are incurred at a facility but did not result in an admission.
Generic Drug: A prescription drug that has the same active-ingredient formula as a brand-name drug.
In-Network: Consists of practitioners and facilities providing quality care at reimbursement rates often below the out-of-network rate.
Inpat: Non-US citizen working in the U.S..
Inpatient: Refers to services and costs that are incurred during a facility admission.
Key Local National (KLN): Citizenship & location in same country.
Mail-Order Fill Rate: The rate of total pharmacy scripts received via mail-order, a feature of a pharmacy program that enables a participant to send their prescription (and any applicable copay) directly to a mail-order vendor.
Major Diagnostic Categories (MDC Major): Industry standard groupings of ICD-9 diagnostic codes which relate to various body systems for inpatient and outpatient claims.
Member-Paid: Claims incurred outside the U.S. for which employees were reimbursed after covering expenses and submitting a claim.
Members: All individuals covered on the plan (employees + spouses + dependents)
Members Not Utilizing Plan: Employees and family members who did not utilize the medical benefits plan.
Minor Diagnostic Categories (MDC Minor): Industry standard sub-groupings of Major Diagnostic Categories.
Out-of-Network: A provider not affiliated with the participating provider network.
Outpatient: Refers to services and costs that are incurred outside of a facility admission.
Outpatient Diagnostic Imaging: Outpatient services and charges related to diagnostic imaging/radiology procedures.
Outpatient ER/UC: Outpatient services and charges related to emergency room and urgent care utilization.
Outpatient Other Medical: Outpatient services and charges related to all other outpatient procedures outside ‘Surgical’, ‘ER/UC’, ‘Diagnostic Imaging’, and ‘Pathology’.
Outpatient Pathology: Outpatient services and charges related to pathology/lab procedures.
Outpatient Surgical: Outpatient services and charges related to surgical procedures.
Pathology: The study and diagnosis of disease through examination of organs, tissues, bodily fluids and whole bodies.
Specialty Pharmacy: A classification of injectable/other drugs that are administered by a physician and largely categorized as medical spend instead of traditional pharmacy spend.
Therapeutic Class: Major therapeutic classes include Central Nervous System, Cardiovascular, Hormonal, Anti-infective, Pain, Allergy/Respiratory and other drugs.
Third Country National (TCN): Non-US citizens working outside their country of citizenship.
Total Cost Share Amount: Benefit plan arrangement requiring that the participant pay a portion of the costs. The sum of copayments, coinsurance and deductibles.
Vision: Services rendered for vision-related care; includes expenses for exams, frames, and lenses.
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The Cigna Global Expat Insurance plan is top-of-the-line in international health and travel insurance and innovation. Please call one of our licensed agents at Good Neighbor Insurance at 866-636-9100 or locally here in Arizona at 480-633-9500 with any questions. You may also reach us via email at info@gninsurance.com.
Have amazing and safe travels!
