International Health Insurance?

[krs743]

I will be coming to Korea in 2 weeks in search of a job while I'm in the country. I'd like to know if anyone can recommend a good international health insurance plan. I will only need coverage (to cover doctor's visits and emergency care if needed) until I find a job (which I anticipate will take me less than 2 months). I've done my research on the internet, but it's hard to know which companies are better than others and I'm not super familiar with all that insurance lingo.


Thanks!

[probablylauren]

You could just do travel insurance, which will cover you for a lot of the big things as a lot of the small day to day stuff is cheap (even if you don't receive any national health insurance benefit).

Personally, that's what i did for the first three weeks or so until I got the national health plan (i believe it technically doesn't kick in until your registered with an ARC).

These days, as i wanted a more permanent private health option, i joined Cigna. No particular reason except i liked their Expat Health Insurance and the fact they were a large brand i knew, as well as having a Korean branch (although i think they are completely separate). I can't really talk about using it, as I haven't yet. But with a lot of the plans for most of these companies, they want a long-term commitment of a year or so I think (although i could be wrong). Overall, its about 100 000 won a month

[marshmellow man]

Travel insurance from your home country may be a suitable option.

I signed a Korean insurance policy at work that was entirely written in Korean.   To this day, I still do not know if is was a good or bad policy, whether it covered injuries outside work, etc, etc.

If you are primarily after medical cover, you may be able to negotiate the price down by lowering the coverage on things like:

* loss or damage to personal items
* travel expenses etc.

Some insurers step up the price of their insurance policy on predetermined policy lengths.  e.g. the price of a policy for 3 months coverage may be almost identical to 4 months coverage.  Take advantage of this if you can.  My present travel insurance policy is like this.