Health Insurance:

We, in Canada, have a fairly robust public health care system. As a health care worker for over 2 decades, I’ll be the first to admit it’s not perfect, but it does the job most of the time. Losing our health care coverage is one of the scariest things for many Canadians considering relocating to another country.

Curaçao also has basic healthcare insurance (BVZ) which is implemented by the Social Insurance Bank (SVB). Like our Canadian plan, it isn’t perfect, but it’s actually pretty good. Unfortunately, as Canadians relocating and establishing residency in Curaçao, we do not qualify. This means we will have to buy health insurance through a private company. I have heard of several people that bought homes and started the residency process, only to find out that no company here would insure them. This would be devastating.

Thankfully, there are options, and, depending on your situation, there should be an option that will suit you.

The purpose of this post is not to sell you insurance. We simply want to give you an idea of what is out there. We have consulted several companies and gotten several quotes for comparison. We will outline these options for you all to see. At some point, we may be able to refer you to a company or an insurance broker, but for now, this is simply for informational purposes.

For these examples, we are using a 54-year-old male and a 32-year-old female. All premiums are for 12 months. All of them include basic medication coverage. All of them need to be paid in full for the year (or 6 months at a time, with a small service fee)

*IMPORTANT: Each insurance company may require a full medical history, exam and blood work. Based on this, there may be exemptions/exclusions for any pre-existing conditions, and they could even deem you “high risk” and deny you insurance. They also will have a maximum qualifying age. These are private companies, and they have no obligation to insure you. Make sure you read our Blog post on Qualifying For Private health Insurance for full details on this!!

Company #1:

Total premium for two: 15887NAF (12598 for the male, 3289 for the female)

Included:

• No max days for inpatient care
• No max days for ICU Care
• Maternal care (no limits)
• Physio (no limits)
• Routine, specialist, and emergency physician visits (no fee caps)
• No yearly limit

Company #2:

Total Premium for two: 5563.45NAF (3963.04 for the male, 1600.41 for the female)

Included:

• No max for inpatient treatment
• No max days for ICU care
• No Maternal care coverage
• No coverage for routine medical visits
• 1.5M NAF in emergency and specialist coverage
• No routine stuff…all emergency and severe

Company #3 Offered 3 options:

Option 1: Total premium for two: 3456NAF (2283NAF for the male, 1173 for Female)

Includes:

• No max days for inpatient treatment
• 14 days max/ailment in ICU
• Specialist Care (with some limits)
• Maternal care (with limits)
• Physio (with caps)
• Maximum limit per year; 150000NAF

Option 2: Same as Option 1, except includes:

• Add vision coverage for 218.40 NAF per person
• Add dental coverage 273NAF per person

Option 3: Total premium for two: 6942NAF (4219NAF for the male, 2724 for the female)

• All that is included in Option 1, but with higher limits on all aspects
• Vision included
• Dental included

Summary:

What we’ve included here is a small sample. There are many companies, and there will be vast differences in premiums depending on the circumstances of the applicants and inclusions. That said, there will be an option suitable for you if you are patient and thorough with your research. I highly recommend you use an insurance broker to make sure you get the best product for your situation. The C4C preferred insurance Broker is Kos Ta Bon. (check out the Friends of C4C page for more C4C preferred businesses and services)

Stay Healthy!!!