International Private Medical Insurance

This is a bit of a 'cheaty' post.

I'm actually writing this over the weekend with a view to posting it on Tuesday as my daily business post. Advance posts are not usually something I like to do as I usually post about what is relevant to me a the minute - often expanding on something that has happened to me during the day or I've come across in the media or on Twitter - I think it keeps the blog more spontaneous, diverse and interesting that way.

However, having been busy over the Bank Holiday weekend and then I know I'm out of the office all day today I thought I'd make a quick post on the subjecy of one of my meetings : International PMI.

This is a subject that is not a massive daily part of my practice but I do have a range of clients across the world including india and the far east, the USA, Caribbean and of course France and across parts of Europe so I regularly look at iPMI both for existing and new clients.

It is an interesting product area - more complex and technical perhaps than UK PMI with slightly different issues to watch out for both for me as an advisor and also for the clients - in general cover is more expensive but tends to be more comprehensive for two reasons - firstly, it needs to be (who wants to get caught whilst working or living abroad without the NHS as a back stop) and also because we tend to be dealing with companies or high net worth individuals they will have the income/resource to pay the premiums and ergo demand better cover.

Having said the market is more technical it's also less mature than the UK market and as such the providers (who with one or two exceptions are different from the UK insurers - AXA PPP, Aviva and BUPA are all active in the sector to varying degrees of competence) tend to be more affable in terms of client support and also bespoking or flexing a proposition for larger clients - in other words there is a high degree of compliance as the insurers compete to acquire non standard business.

iPMI is a subject I will return to here and also on the podcast (PMICast available on iTunes and at www.pmicast.podbean.com it's not a massively lucrative area for me but clients need support when considering setting up a non UK policy and there is a dearth of qualified and experienced advisors in this sector.