This guide aims to give an (impartial) overview of some international insurance plans on offer in in China. When I first came to China in 2005, I just used a Dutch insurance (Joho – Special Isis). Because that one expired after 4 years, I was forced to take a new insurance. I wrote this guide, because apparently there are no good guides to picking an insurance for expats in China. I only found some incomplete posts on several forums.

Some common tips:

• Since I live in China and rarely go abroad, I don’t really need an international insurance. I definitely don’t need an insurance that covers North-America (which is always much more expensive)
  
• Health-care in China is quite cheap, so it doesn’t make sense to have a large ‘excess’ or ‘deductible’ in your plan. An excess of ’50 euro’ for example would mean that you always need to pay the first 50 euro for each event, and the insurance company only pays over that amount. In China this doesn’t make much sense, unless you really want to go cheap. I prefer 0 excess.
  
• Chinese insurers such as Ping An, China Life don’t have good information for foreigners. They should theoretically be cheaper and it's possible to buy those insurances, but who wants to deal with all the Chinese paperwork?
• Chinese insurances are quite different: they offer long-term health and serious-disease insurances. For serious-disease insurances you pay for example 20 years long a yearly fee. If you happen to get one of the covered illnesses, you will get paid immediately. If not, then you can withdraw your money after X years. The serious diseases are really only the very worst, where you either die or get permanently handicapped, so it's not something for normal surgeries.
  
• Some companies only offer insurances to companies or groups or to specific nationalities.
  
• Pay special attention to things like renewal of the insurance after each year; can they deny you or is extending your insurance guaranteed?
  
• Dental insurance is generally expensive, and in China the dentist is really cheap. Think carefully if you want to spend 400 US$/year on a service that might only cost 200US$ in the worst case in China.
• Most foreign clinics and hospitals are located in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other Chinese cities have much less especially for foreigners.
• Consider if you need health insurance at all, I know several people who just save some money in their bank account. If you get some very serious illness, this is not a good option, but since normally medical bills are quite affordable in China, it's definitely something to consider. Even if you stay a few days in a hospital, you probably don't pay more than a few thousand RMB anyway.
• money saving tip: you can get discounts on your insurance! Those insurance sales people get quite a hefty bonus on each insurance they sell. You can ask for a discount and they will probably give you one. For an insurance of about 2000 dollar, it should be possible to get a discount of 500+ yuan!
  

* Direct billing: most international insurances only have a direct billing network in Shanghai and Beijing. Some have it in Guangzhou, Tianjin and Hong Kong as well, but Shenzhen is not included in most plans, so it's of little benefit to me. If you live in Shanghai or Beijing, it's definitely something to take into consideration. 

My insurance:

I have decided to buy Chartis GHSH 150 with Outpatient insurance (about 1989 USD / year). I like the fact that Chartis has quite a clear policy and doesn't seem to require upfront approval of almost all treatments. Just hand it in after your treatment is done. Outpatient has a limit of 5000 USD which is not a lot, but probably more than enough in China where most treatments are very cheap. Since my employer pays for the insurance, I also wanted to pick a low deductible; Lots of insurers have deductibles that are global, for example 100 USD. That makes little sense in China, because most of the time the costs will be well below 100USD. I will consider several of the other insurance options next year again though, because I don't like worldwide coverage (I only need China) and some other companies seem to offer better coverage.

I also bought an AIA serious disease insurance (7780 yuan per year) because you can get money back, and that it offers more continuity over all the yearly insurances. You still need to pay per year and you can stop each year, but the longer you continue, the more money you collect in your account. If you ever happen to get (very) sick, then at least you have some money to take care of it. I treat this insurance more as a life-insurance than a health-insurance, because it only covers the worst possible diseases where you either die or permanently get handicapped. Some more details about how this works: you need to pay for X years (in my case 20) and if you get one of the few covered illnesses during this period, they will pay you a fixed amount of money. If you don't get sick, you can get part of your money back at the end. It's a bit like saving money in the bank, but you also get the benefit of insurance in the meantime. As long as you didn't get your money out, you are still insured. Many other Chinese insurance companies offer similar schemes (Ping An for example). The benefits are : cheap and you can get some money back if you stay healthy. Disadvantages: no substitute for a real health insurance and if you get sick, they don't pay much either.

Other impressions insurances:

+ AIA - Chinese insurance 

My girlfriend made an appointment with a salesperson from AIA, Chinese branch. They don't offer any policies on their website, so you really need to talk to them individually. We asked about this, and the guy said all Chinese insurance companies work like this. I guess they want to get your contact information and they expect better conversion rates like this. Anyway, what we found out was the following: they don't offer out-patient insurances, only in-patient and a separate serious-diseases insurance.

The normal health-insurance is paid just on a yearly basis and is quite cheap: about 1200 yuan per year for the most expensive offer for people aged 18-29. This insurance is non-refundable and they pay quite little as far as I am concerned: only about 10K rmb/event. Apparently this is enough for an appendix surgery (the sales-guy said about 5K rmb). You can pay also several times the rate and then you get several times the coverage as well.

This is for the normal health insurance, scanned for your information :

click for full-size version

Great website, clear information, immediate access to quotations (http://www.aiggeneral.com.cn/download/Brochure/GH%20brochure.pdf ) without filling out details. Reasonable prices as well and three different packages (GHSH 150, 350 and 400). It would be nice if they offered to exclude North America for GHSH 150 or to include out-patient into 350, but all packages are quite reasonable. Has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Shenzhen. Insurance is targetted at the Chinese market.  I have bought this insurance myself (GHSH 150)

++ Allianz Worldwide Care – http://www.allianzworldwidecare.com/
One of the biggest insurers worldwide I guess and although their website is a bit overwhelming, they have a good quotations page (http://www.allianzworldwidecare.com/individual-international-health-insurance-cover-quote ). I got a quote for about 1800 euro for a classic individual plan + crystal individual out-patient plan.
Great overviews:
http://www.allianzworldwidecare.com/compare-our-out-patient-plans-for-individuals
http://www.allianzworldwidecare.com/compare-our-core-plans-for-individuals

+ Bupa International - https://www.bupainternational.com/
Impression: looks professional, backed by Allianz. Bit too expensive, nice to have option to exclude North-America.  Can get quotations online (after fill out some data). Price for all-in-coverage: about 3289 euro (inpatient+outpatent+preventative checkups, ex-USA). Too expensive for me.

 + MSH China  (also GBG) - http://www.mshchina.com/
Chinese insurance company that offers a decent website and online apply for quotations and they have some plans especially for Greater China. MSH China is the brand new joint venture established by Shanghai Tai Kai Business Management Co., Ltd (STK) and Mobility Saint Honoré (MSH) in June, 2009. MSH has three ISO certified claim centers located in Paris, Calgary, Dubai, and soon Shanghai, which proves our commitment to continuous pursuits for service excellence.

• Routine and Emergency coverage in Mainland China, Taiwan, Macao and Hong Kong.
• Other areas are deemed restricted areas, where only Emergency coverage is covered.
• Emergency coverage must be approved by our Care Coordination Company.
  

 ~ Ping An - http://insurance.pingan.com
One of the major Chinese insurance companies, unfortunately their entire website is in Chinese and you can really only get information about their products if someone who reads Chinese can help you. They have some English material about their products, but it is hidden behind many pages of Chinese.

+ William Rusell - http://www.william-russell.com
Website looks professional, won an award previously for service. Online comparison of plans and easy access to quotations: http://www.william-russell.com/benefits/compare/ Global Health Elite Silver (with outpatient) looks good. Price for Silver (no access) + travel + accident (no USA cover) was about 2500USD/year. Their guide mentions something about renewal of the insurance each year after their approval. Not sure what to make about that.

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henrique   |116.76.209.xxx |2009-12-27 00:10:44 Ik had in mijn eerste jaar ook ISIS maar betaalde 400-500? euro maar met een eigen risico van 50 euro, nou hier in China kan je daar best veel voor doen dus heb het na 1 jaar opgezegd, had alleen een tandarts rekening van 65 euro ( bij westerse tandarts in Diwang, 3 xrays, consult en nieuwe vulling) dus kreeg 15 euro terug woohoo!Nu stort ik gewoon jaarlijks 300 euro - 3000 rmb op mijn Chinese rekening en mocht ik onverhoopt hier in het ziekenhuis komen betaal ik het daar wel van. Mijn vrouw heeft wel voor 100rmb per jaar bij PING An voor mij een of andere Accident verzekering afgesloten mocht ik een ongeluk krijgen in een auto, bus, vliegtuig dan krijg ik wat ziekenhuis kosten vergoed (en een uitkering mocht ik het loodje leggen tijdens dat ongeluk), het fijne weet ik ook niet precies hiervan maar ach voor die 100 rmb Reply

Thijs     |219.134.27.xxx |2009-12-27 00:22:05 Precies, ik ben het helemaal met je eens. Alleen zit ik in de luxe positie dat mijn werkgever een aardig bedrag beschikbaar stelt om een verzekering te kopen. Dan kan ik dus maar beter het geld uitgeven, aangezien het mij toch geen cent kost Reply

Henrique   |116.76.209.xxx |2009-12-27 09:41:17 Oh ok dat is mooi meegenomen, en ook nog feestjes van QQ, trips etc ik heb toch echt een verkeerd beroep gekozen Laat het ons weten welke je uiteindelijk heb genomen. Reply

James   |210.72.234.xxx |2010-01-21 11:14:43 Actually, Ping An does provide information in English and they are easy to deal with. I phoned them last October and they emailed me their policy information in English. Afterwards I visited their office in Beijing and spoke to a salesman. Ping An provides various levels of insurance for individuals for in-patient care. The rates depend on your age and the level of hospital care you want to insure for. In my case (age 36) the basic rate was about RMB 3500 per year, covering a list of possible medical procedures, a certain maximum number of days etc. with a discount for renewing the policy the following year). If you want to insure a higher medical event cost / have a higher level of care while you are in hospital the rate will be higher. A number of hospitals direct-bill to Ping An including BUFH and Amcare. Reply

Thijs  - Ping An     |219.133.154.xxx |2010-02-15 00:54:22 Thanks for the tip James! I have found a Ping An insurance on the website (hidden behind many Chinese pages) and added it to the overview above. They work together with IMG to offer an expat insurance. The insurance I found is different from the one you mention though; 3500RMB is quite cheap (which makes it a great buy if you are on a budget) but probably comes with many limitations. The insurances I list above have much higher insurance limits and fewer limitations. Reply

Paul  - health insurance   |59.61.3.xxx |2010-02-15 18:07:49 Very interesting study. Wished I had noticed it earlier, since my wife just bought an insurance in China. But with your study we would have had a good way to compare. For myself (Dutch origin) I have already for years an insurance at a Dutch company "Oom verzekeringen" who are specialized in insurances for expats. https://www.oomverzekeringen.nl/nl.aspx (Also in English) I pay a lot more than the table above, but I have extra insurances in the package such as travel, liability, Legal aid, molest, accident. And my age also makes the costs higher. But I will study above more severe, maybe I switch ? Reply

Thijs  - thanks     |61.141.157.xxx |2010-02-15 20:31:46 Thanks Paul! I know "Oom verzekeringen" (I considered that one as well before I moved to China). There are indeed lots of options available from the various insurance companies; the ones I listed are mainly for health-insurance only. Several companies offer additional travel insurances which cover luggage etc. I still hope to add some more plans to the list, especially Chinese insurance companies / at the cheaper end, but it's hard to collect the information from them. Reply

Paul  - Health insurance   |59.61.71.xxx |2010-02-15 21:47:28 Oom doesn't have a time limit anymore. It became lifetime. Reply

Paul  - Chinese health   |59.61.71.xxx |2010-02-15 21:57:04 I watched closely my (Chinese) wife looking for the insurance. Stroke me that they consider it like an investment. Calculate how much can earn back after 'x' years. Don't care what's insured and what not. On my advise she pushed to get more info what really is insured instead the A4 what they give you. Still not very clear. Terrible desease, rather vague I think. Anyway, the costs are very much less than I pay with Oom. But what is really insured ? guess we find out when something happens (hope not of course) Reply

Thijs  - Chinese serious disease insurance     |61.141.157.xxx |2010-02-15 23:52:49 I also did one of those I never heard of this kind of scheme before I went to China. Mine (from AIA) is very similar to yours: it only covers the worst-of-the-worst diseases, so I see it more as a kind of life-insurance than a health-insurance. I'll update the page to point this special kind of insurance out! Reply

Hildebrand, The Insurance Ward     |66.205.157.xxx |2010-03-02 03:19:23 No Chinese insurance companies offer policies over their website? If it were so here in the States, I'd guess it owed to an imbroglio of legislation, but over there, I can only imagine it represents a significant gap for marketers to fill. Reply

Thijs (Shenzhen)  - yes, very strange     |61.141.242.xxx |2010-03-03 21:05:18 I agree; it's very strange they don't offer online information. Perhaps things will change when the market becomes more mature? Most Chinese don't have any choice for health insurance, they just get one via their employer (if they have insurance at all). Reply

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