AXA launches cross- border insurance plans in Africa and Australasia

While medical tourism linked insurance has not yet happened, and shows few signs of being important to health insurance in the future, an increasing number of international health plans accept that in certain parts of the world it is important to offer cross-border healthcare.

While medical tourism linked insurance has not yet happened, and shows few signs of being important to health insurance in the future, an increasing number of international health plans accept that in certain parts of the world it is important to offer cross-border healthcare.

This cross border healthcare is aimed at situations where a hospital or clinic in a nearby clinic may offer the best solution for a patient. These insurances are not blazing a trail for overseas treatment, as they are following where people already go. They are not aimed at covering planned overseas treatment, as many of these procedures such as cosmetic and dental surgery are outside the cover,

AXA PPP International has a new international plan for Kenya and Tanzania as part of the strategy to expand into African countries using local partners. The Pan Africa Plan is distributed by Nairobi based insurance broker J W Seagon, and covers treatment and care in facilities across the African continent, as well as offering the added flexibility of having treatment in India and Pakistan when needed.

Pan Africa Plan offers five levels of cover to meet people’s healthcare needs and budgets. Bronze cover provides benefit for in-patient and day-patient treatment and includes the option to add outpatient cover for those wanting extra protection. Silver and Gold provide additional benefits to those of Bronze, including outpatient drugs and dressings and, for Gold, an annual health check. Platinum, the top-of-the-range option, includes cover for routine dental care and Chinese herbal medicines as well as palliative care for all diagnoses. Emergency evacuation or repatriation comes as standard across all five cover levels.

An increasing number of New Zealand health insurance providers, allow customers to go to Australia for treatment. Like all health insurance, the products do not cover existing health problems.

In most of these policies, it is the insurer who decided where the customer is treated; the customer cannot on a whim decide to go to an overseas hospital. Insurers have their own global network of hospitals and doctors, mostly with agreement on prices drastically below the list price that a direct patient would pay; which is why agents and hospitals targeting insurers by comparing prices in their country with where the customer lives, are wasting their efforts.