Health insurance abroad: the decision nobody enjoys making
Travel medical vs international health insurance vs local systems: what visas require, what coverage really costs, and the gaps that hurt. Plan healthcare on Jonzy.
Every long-stay visa asks for insurance, every nomad forum argues about it, and the products span a tenfold price range. The choice collapses into three tiers, travel medical, international health, and local systems, once you know what each actually covers.
Tier one: travel medical insurance
Built for emergencies away from home: hospital, ambulance, evacuation, with monthly pricing that suits rolling subscriptions. What it is not: real healthcare. Routine care, chronic conditions, serious ongoing treatment and often pregnancy sit outside cover, and claims assume you eventually go home. Fine for the first exploratory year; shaky as a life plan.
Tier two: international health insurance
Proper private cover that works across countries: routine and specialist care, chronic condition management, often dental and maternity at higher tiers. Costs scale with age and region, a healthy thirty-something might pay a few hundred dollars a month, US coverage inflates everything. This is the tier that behaves like the insurance you had at home.
Tier three: local public and private systems
Residence visas increasingly plug you into national systems: Portugal and Spain grant public access once resident, Thailand and Indonesia lean on affordable private hospitals, and cheap local private policies can beat international pricing. The catalog’s healthcare scores show where local systems are genuinely good enough to rely on.
What visas actually demand
Schengen short stays require roughly €30,000 of medical cover. Nomad visas typically demand insurance valid in-country for the full stay, some, like Japan’s nomad status, insist on private cover explicitly. Read the visa’s wording before buying: a cheap travel policy that fails the requirement costs more than the premium it saved.
The gaps that actually hurt people
Letting home coverage lapse before new cover starts, discovering exclusions mid-treatment, aging into unaffordable renewals, and pregnancies outside waiting periods, these, not exotic accidents, are the common financial wounds. Decide on the tier before you need it; switching after a diagnosis is the one move insurance never allows.
Frequently asked questions
What insurance do I need for a digital nomad visa?
Coverage valid in the destination for your full stay, meeting any stated minimum, Schengen short stays set roughly €30,000. Check whether the visa demands private cover specifically; some programs reject travel-medical products.
How much does nomad health insurance cost?
Travel medical runs tens of dollars a month; full international health insurance runs a few hundred for a healthy adult, more with US coverage or age. Local private policies in cheaper systems can undercut both.
Is travel insurance enough for living abroad?
For short exploratory stints, usually. For actual life abroad, no: it excludes routine and chronic care and assumes repatriation. Long-stayers graduate to international health cover or a solid local system.
Do expats get public healthcare abroad?
Often, once legally resident: Portugal and Spain enrol residents in public systems, and many countries sell affordable public buy-ins. The catalog’s healthcare scores flag where public systems are strong enough to be the plan.