Some of these policies are very comprehensive, others are simply bare medical cover for the basic 36 illnesses. Depending on your industry and your company, you will enjoy different standards here. A rule of thumb is that if you were sent here by your company, you have high chances of enjoying a comprehensive coverage, while if you work on a local contract you are certainly on a simple basic cover.

If you are on a local contract, I don’t really need to sell you on the benefits of having your own insurance. Your reading this blog is proof enough of your having your eyes open to your needs.

If you are on an expatriate contract, depending on your company’s policy, you may want to consider the following. Most of these policies are group negotiated and some providers do not offer individuals or family options. Hence, once you move on from your job – to take up a better offer, take a one year sabbatical break, or early retirement – you may not have the option to continue with your current provider, and need to switch to another one.

This should not be a problem, as long as you and your family are healthy. But let’s imagine one second that you or your wife had a blood-related problem in the past few years, or your child develop diabetes due to a lack of exercise – get him a Wii ! – then the new policy will certainly consider them as pre-existing conditions and may exclude them from their policy.

The surest way to know you are protected according to your expectations, and ensure this protetions can follow you wherever you are is to get an international insurance for yourself and your loved ones. This means your personal insurer will overlap with your corporate one.

Having more than one insurance is 100% legal and is actually quite common, especially when both spouse work. Your personal insurance ensures continuity of cover should you move to another country / company down the road. Which you do on a regular basis when you are living the expatriate life, isn’t it?

If you don’t already have your personal international insurance, I invite you to give me a buzz, or check here to get some ideas of the type of cover and prices you may expect from an international provider.

Then why did I get insured?

1- In case something happen

I know, it sounds obvious. But working in this field, I realized how essential insurances are. It only is a matter of time before you get something – you never know when you are going to get hit by a bus, catch a virus, or simply rupture your appendix.  And living in Malaysia does not help – just check the statistics for road accidents in 2007 to get an idea of what I mean…

2- Pre-Existing Protection & Chronic Conditions

Insurance companies try to discourage people from waiting until they get sick in order to purchase health insurance. One way in which they do this is to impose pre-existing condition exclusion periods. Such exclusion really becomes a problem when you have a pre-existing chronic conditions – from which you can never recover, they can only be managed. Hearth disease, diabetes, arthritis and asthma are considered chronic.

Since it is more likely that a chronic condition will affect an older person, a young expat would be wise to consider getting a decent insurance before he develop one. If he waits too long – and is unfortunate enough to develop one – it is extremely difficult to obtain cover later as it will be seen as a pre-existing condition.

3- It actually is not that expensive

With $150 per month you can find a pretty decent insurance coverage. It may not give you routine dental, but you will have in-patient, out-patient, and optical. A good deal IMHO !