How to compare health insurance in Dubai
When you’re looking for health coverage, your goal will be to find a plan that is right for you. However, the number of policies available can make choosing health insurance on your own a difficult task. Since a one-size-fits-all plan doesn’t exist, brokers play a vital role in reducing your time spent searching for plans and making sure that the policy you choose is the right one for your needs. As a leading broker, we’ve always aspired to make the world of insurance more transparent. This Pacific Prime Dubai article offers useful tips on how to search for and choose the best medical insurance in Dubai.
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Learn important insurance terms
While suggesting you should familiarize yourself with key insurance terms may be obvious advice, surprisingly, many people start looking for health insurance without any understanding of policy documentation.
Health insurance plans are legally binding contracts that are set up to protect both the insurer and the insured, known as the policyholder. Insurance terms can be quite confusing and make you feel like they’re in a foreign language. Fortunately, our useful health insurance glossary makes it easy to learn the most important insurance terms and their definitions, such as:
- Exclusion
- Deductible
- Pre-existing condition
- Limitation
- Waiting period
- Co-insurance
- Rider
- And more
Determine your health insurance needs
Before you start evaluating the terms of the different insurance policies, you’ll need to determine your healthcare and health insurance needs. If you have a pre-existing condition, for example, your best bet will be to find an insurer that would provide coverage for these conditions. It’s important to note that insurers will often either attach a waiting period or charge an additional premium for pre-existing condition coverage.
If you’re living in Dubai with your family, you might be looking for family health insurance plans that offer comprehensive outpatient benefits. This type of benefit would help cover outside of hospitalization, such as General Practitioner (GP) visits. Similarly, it’s advisable to check whether the policy you’re interested in purchasing covers treatment at your preferred clinic.
It’s also important to be aware that health insurance benefits vary with every plan, which is why you should know exactly what you’re after. While the right benefits for you will depend on your needs, expats in Dubai are often looking for plans with some, or all, of the following benefits:
- Health check-up
- Vaccination
- Outpatient
- Dental
- Pre-existing conditions
- Maternity/pregnancy/childbirth/newborn
Know what factors to consider when choosing health insurance
Online health insurance quotation tools have made it much easier to compare health insurance options and weigh up premiums and benefits. Additionally, it’s important to keep in mind that factors such as customer service quality can make a huge difference when you need to submit a claim. Before you decide on a plan, it’s crucial to compare medical insurance with the following factors in mind.
Coverage
While the benefits featured in a plan are certainly important, there are other things to consider, such as:
- Flexibility – You might want to add additional benefits or a dependent to your plan in the future, so make sure it’s flexible.
- Provider network – If you have a preferred GP or specialist, check whether your plan covers visits to them.
- Coverage area – Will you need coverage in the UAE only or worldwide? If you travel or move frequently, then worldwide coverage might offer the best value.
Price
To get the best value policy, you have to have the ideal balance between policy benefits and premiums. Plans with the lowest premiums usually don’t offer the most comprehensive coverage. Generally speaking, cheap plans often come with downsides such as:
- Expensive out-of-pocket payments
- Low benefit limits
- Limited provider network
- Extensive list of exclusions
- No worldwide coverage
- Poor customer service
Billing methods
When it comes to insurance billing processes, the most efficient option is direct billing. Direct billing methods allow facilities in your plan’s network to settle your claim directly with the insurance provider.
Renewability
Many local health insurance plans are only renewable upon mutual agreement. This means that insurers can decide whether or not to renew your coverage, which could be unfortunate if you developed a pre-existing condition during the policy period or have expensive claims. International health insurance plans, on the other hand, are generally lifetime renewable, making them a more long-term solution than a local plan.
Portability
If you’re likely to relocate or return to your home country in the future, you’ll want to make sure you can retain coverage. International health insurance ensures that you’re still covered no matter where you are in the world.
Insurer reputation
Another key factor that is often overlooked is the insurer’s reputation when it comes to customer service, claims support, renewal negotiations, and past premium increases. By choosing an insurer that has established a good reputation, you’ll have access to robust customer support and smaller price increases, to name a few.
Find health insurance with Pacific Prime Dubai’s help
Instead of comparing health insurance plans on your own, you can work with a reputable broker such as Pacific Prime Dubai. We make it easy for you to find the best health insurance in Dubai for your needs and budget. With more than 20 years of experience in the insurance industry, our team of experts are available to guide you through your insurance options from top insurance providers in the UAE and around the world.
On top of that, we offer a wide variety of additional services, which you won’t get when you go directly to the insurer. These services include:
- Impartial advice
- Insurance plan comparison and analysis
- Insurer liaison
- Claims support
- Claims and renewal negotiations
- Administration assistance
- Hospital information and recommendation
- And more
Check out our compare health insurance page to get started or contact us today!
Jantra curates and reports on the results of Pacific Prime’s monthly newsletters, as well as manages Pacific Prime’s Deputy Global CEO’s LinkedIn posts. Complemented by her background in business writing, Jantra’s passion for health, insurance, and employee benefits helps her create engaging content - no matter how complex the subject is.
Growing up as a third-culture kid has given her a multicultural perspective that helps her relate to expats and their families while 8 years of working remotely have given her unique insight into hybrid work arrangements and enthusiasm for employee benefits.
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