Indigo Expat Homepage > Declaraties (expatverzekering)
International Healthcare insurance: reimbursement of your medical expenses
It is always interesting to have more insight on how your medical expenses will be reimbursed: how many people are working at the claim administration? Is there a medical department? How many languages are spoken? How many languages are available 24/24? What are procedures? How long will it take to get reimbursed? In which currency are you refunded? Can you change it whenever you want? …
If you subscribe to a Top Up plan with the CFE, it is very interesting to know if:
- you will have to send your request for reimbursement first to CFE and afterwards to your private Insurance Company?
- or, what will happen in case of emergency (direct settlement in case of hospitalisation)?
- can you send everything directly to your private Insurance Company which manages coordination with CFE through its agreement.
Because this will significantly reduce the time to obtain reimbursement and will be more efficient and comfortable for you!
Bank transfer
Bank transfer is part of the reimbursement process even if it is done by a bank (third party) and not by the Claims Administrator.
Make sure that regarding the transfer no costs will be incurred. This is quite important because if you earn 5% on the premium but you have to pay 10% fees (for example 10 Euro on a 100 Euro reimbursement) each time to receive a reimbursement, you can better select another Insurance company. Besides, pay attention to the average time it takes to get the reimbursement on your bank account.
You will never have access to the agreement between the Claim Administrator and banks, but you may consider that the size of managed population can have an important impact on this point. (Example: 400 000 lives covered with X vs 100 000 lives covered with Y).
Services, documents and commitments
Regarding supporting documentation and services, make sure that you receive from your provider the following documents:
- General conditions or Beneficiary Guide,
- Particular conditions or Table of Benefits,
- Claims forms (request for reimbursement, prior approval),
- Member cards,
- Helpline is available 24/365 (to get information on you plan or reimbursement, to organize direct settlement in case of hospitalisation / emergency…),
- Online services to download your claims statements, modify your details…