Insurance in Hong Kong is extremely similar to insurance in the USA. There are all the same types of insurance products; Motor, Home, Medical, Fire, Life, and Domestic Helper. Correctly identifying the coverage that you need is the most important first step when thinking about insurance. As such, the following is a brief out-line of some of the more common types of insurance products found in Hong Kong.
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Everyone in Hong Kong needs Medical Insurance. As global medical costs are currently experiencing the highest levels of inflation ever recorded Health Insurance is increasingly becoming a hot-topic. Medical treatment is becoming more and more expensive across the globe, and nowhere is this more pronounced than in the USA and Hong Kong. According to insurance industry reports the USA is the most expensive place in the world to receive medical treatment, followed by Hong Kong and Israel. The issue has grown so bad that an inability to pay for healthcare is the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the USA. A Medical Insurance policy will indemnify you against medical costs by contributing towards the cost of any medical treatment that you, the policyholder, receive.
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One of the most important things to remember when considering any Hong Kong medical insurance plan is to remember that some of the coverage benefits, like maternity, will often be attached to a waiting period. This can often cause some difficulties when choosing a policy and not every insurance company applies the same waiting periods to their health insurance. With regards to maternity cover, there are typically two forms of waiting period that a plan can use, these are; from the start of the plan and until conception.
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If you obtain a medical insurance policy which has a waiting period from the start of the plan (typically between 10 and 12 months) then you will only be able to claim for maternity related treatment, such as the actual delivery, that is received after you have been enrolled on the plan for that amount of time. Conversely, if you obtain a policy that requires you to wait a length of time until the conception (again, typically between 10 and 12 months) then you will have to wait until you have been on the policy for that length of time before you can conceive for the pregnancy to be covered.
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A medical insurance policy with maternity coverage can offer a policyholder additional coverage benefits, including newborn child coverage. This is usually offered in one of two ways; your child can receive a free benefit or be born into the plan. If a newborn child is born into a plan then they will receive guaranteed coverage for life, no matter what the state of their health is at birth. It is important to note that this will increase the plan premium.
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If the newborn receives a free benefit, then they will typically be covered up to a predetermined financial or time limit. After this limit has been reached, you must submit an application to the insurer for further coverage for the infant. While newborn coverage is attached to a waiting period, this can be much shorter than the waiting period for maternity protection. In some cases it is possible to obtain this type of protection having been on a plan for just 6 months.
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