Chronic Conditions

Perhaps the most important type of medical condition is a chronic condition. This is normally defined as a condition from which you do not recover, you only manage and maintain. The conditions normally respond to treatment during the acute phases and very often require ongoing medication during the palliative phases. Good examples are diabetes, heart disease and asthma.

Chronic conditions are very serious since they normally require a lifetime of medication and treatment and are therefore very expensive.

International Medical insurers will often place limitations or restrictions around the treatment of a chronic condition and in some cases the plan may not cover chronic conditions at all. Generally limitations are:

Acute Phases only:

The policy is structured to cover the acute phases of a condition. This is when the condition 'flares up' or requires special treatment over a short period of time

Lifetime Limit:

Insurer will agree to a lifetime limit on Chronic conditions. This means in the earlier years of the conditions the treatment may well be covered in full but overtime if the condition requires ongoing treatment, you may exceed the limit and no further cover will be provided.

Annual Limit:

This limit is applied to expenses during the year. Very often annual limits are applied to palliative treatment since these most directly relate to treatment required every year.

Most young expats are not really concerned about chronic conditions since they seem remote and unlikely to be of direct relevance to them (it is true that chronic conditions tend to occur later in life). Unfortunately, once you have a condition at younger age it is very difficult to cover it later since it will then be deemed a pre-existing condition.