Expatriate Group Insurance Should Begin Immediately

One of the biggest problems multinational employers make is waiting too long to establish expatriate group insurance plans like expatraite health insurance. Most of the good carriers that specialize in expatriate insurance begin benefit programs for expatriates at just two employee lives, even if there are no dependents.

Most global organizations don't think 2,3, or even 5 expats are a big deal, and they normally continue under the U.S. health program and other U.S. fringe benefit programs. Once the group starts to grow, other priorities at the company may push the expat project to the bottom of the list. Soon a company may have over 10 people living or travelling overseas under home country plans and this can become a ticking time bomb.

First, U.S. life and disability plans (or any home country plan if talking about TCN employees) may not pay claims if they discover the employee is permanently residing abroad. Many problems can come out of using the U.S. health plan including claims abroad seen as "out of network" and prescription drug claims denied by "not being on the U.S. FDA list" of eligible drugs.

A good rule of thumb is, for each expat an employer adds without establishing a formal expatriate group insurance plan, the chances of a major problem increase by 10 fold.