Health Insurance Abroad

intparent
Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:56:45 +0000

Thought I would post here instead of study abroad, as I am really looking for experiences from other parents. Has anyone else run into issues getting a letter confirming insurance coverage from their health insurance company when their kid is studying abroad? My D is going to study at a European university next fall and is not going through a college program (none to her country of choice, and her college has agreed to accept her credits).

The country she is going to requires her to get a student residence permit, since she will be there for more than 3 months. Part of the residence permit application is proof of health insurance. They want to know basically what is covered, the length of the coverage, any cap, etc. Our health insurance company (who we have been with for 10 years through ex-H’s employment) is being a major pain about providing this letter. I have now made 7 different phone calls, and am currently working my way up through the supervisor level trying to get an appropriate letter or document from them. After 5 calls, I finally got a letter that was mostly about what they WON’T cover – very CYA, all in legalese, and it doesn’t include the specific details that the country’s consulate asks for.

Then I figured out that it doesn’t even have the correct coverage info in it – when she goes abroad, we are to notify them, and they will move her to an “out of area” category in the plan with different coverages than normal. No issue there, except they won’t produce a letter describing the out of area coverage until she is actually in that category. Which we don’t want to do until she is ready to leave the country… which she can’t do without this residence permit… which she can’t get without the letter. Argh!