Some international health insurance companies allow twenty percent of the insured to be on the home-base staff. Thus if your full employee list (overseas and USA) was twenty, four of those could be residing in the USA. But the group health coverage must be offered to all of your home base staff. Thus if you have six home base staff, all six would need to have the opportunity to apply for coverage. If all six wanted the coverage you would be over twenty percent. You can not just pick and choose which home-base staff members can take out the coverage.
International health insurance companies must be careful for they are not to compete with USA insurance companies by providing domestic coverage. International insurers are called “Surplus Lines Insurers.” As a result they are not subject to domestic insurance laws and because of that are not licensed to sell domestic health insurance. In spite of that these companies have been given the flexibility to insure members of home base staffs if they meet the criteria above.
So, when thinking of including your home-base staff on your international plan, count every home-base employee. If the number is more than twenty percent of your total employees, you can not do it.
