Private Health Insurance in Canada

[JohnnyB]

After more than a decade abroad I'm now preparing to move home to Canada for an extended period. Neither my wife nor I will be covered by our current insurance when we move to Canada and I understand it will take 3 months of residence before I'm eligible to be back on provincial health insurance in BC. Furthermore, my wife is not Canadian and we expect it to be a good half-year at least before she gets permanent residency or eligibility for provincial health coverage. Needless to say, we're looking for private health insurance for the periods we need coverage.

Anyone been through a similar situation before and have recommendations on best insurers/policies or other clever bits of relevant info?


EDIT: Also, should we be thinking about pet insurance? Is that a thing people do or consider necessary in Canada?

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

After more than a decade abroad I'm now preparing to move home to Canada for an extended period. Neither my wife nor I will be covered by our current insurance when we move to Canada and I understand it will take 3 months of residence before I'm eligible to be back on provincial health insurance in BC. Furthermore, my wife is not Canadian and we expect it to be a good half-year at least before she gets permanent residency or eligibility for provincial health coverage. Needless to say, we're looking for private health insurance for the periods we need coverage.

Anyone been through a similar situation before and have recommendations on best insurers/policies or other clever bits of relevant info?


EDIT: Also, should we be thinking about pet insurance? Is that a thing people do or consider necessary in Canada?

This is kind of suited towards students travelling to BC, but it might be helpful.


http://www.hr.ubc.ca/wellbeing-benef...aiting-period/

[Harju]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

After more than a decade abroad I'm now preparing to move home to Canada for an extended period. Neither my wife nor I will be covered by our current insurance when we move to Canada and I understand it will take 3 months of residence before I'm eligible to be back on provincial health insurance in BC. Furthermore, my wife is not Canadian and we expect it to be a good half-year at least before she gets permanent residency or eligibility for provincial health coverage. Needless to say, we're looking for private health insurance for the periods we need coverage.

Anyone been through a similar situation before and have recommendations on best insurers/policies or other clever bits of relevant info?


EDIT: Also, should we be thinking about pet insurance? Is that a thing people do or consider necessary in Canada?

Has she applied for permanent residency yet? If she has applied and will be waiting to get permanent residence, she could apply for Alberta health care with a valid visitors permit (this is for Alberta but I would think other provinces would be similar). I do not think there is a blanket policy on this and eligibility is decided on a case by case basis, so private insurance would be wise up front.

https://www.alberta.ca/ahcip-temporary-residents.aspx
.

[nfotiu]

I don't know about Canada, but my experience with US pet insurance is that it is pretty much useless. We carried pet insurance for our dog that ended up having congenital liver disease. At first they said they wouldn't cover it because it was a pre-existing condition. But then after some back and forth they decided to cover it, but due to exceptions, exclusions, limits on what they paid, they covered about $800 of our $6000 bill. We may have got back what we paid in for a few years, but it certainly didn't do much to offset the large bill we thought we were protected against.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

EDIT: Also, should we be thinking about pet insurance? Is that a thing people do or consider necessary in Canada?

Pet insurance depends on a few things. How old is your dog? Insurance won't cover anything pre-existing so if your dog is older or has had any issues before, it likely won't be too helpful.

Then you need to consider your circumstances. I do not have insurance, but have my own savings, so that if something occurs, I am the one making the decisions and if nothing happens, I still have the money.

If you don't have the means to cover an issue that happens right away, or if you are not disciplined about saving, then get the insurance. I deal with rescue dogs from the US and we always try to do the vetting in the US before the dogs are transported, because it's much cheaper there than in Calgary.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

Pet insurance depends on a few things. How old is your dog? Insurance won't cover anything pre-existing so if your dog is older or has had any issues before, it likely won't be too helpful.

Then you need to consider your circumstances. I do not have insurance, but have my own savings, so that if something occurs, I am the one making the decisions and if nothing happens, I still have the money.

If you don't have the means to cover an issue that happens right away, or if you are not disciplined about saving, then get the insurance. I deal with rescue dogs from the US and we always try to do the vetting in the US before the dogs are transported, because it's much cheaper there than in Calgary.

Our pets will go through thorough health checks before we leave here. We're okay for savings, though with lost income from the transition to Canada we're not going to be looking to spend unnecessarily. I guess I'm just not familiar with vet costs in Canada or private insurance costs in Canada. Actually, it's a funny feeling to be ostensibly coming home yet at the same time feeling so unfamiliar with these types of things where I'm moving to.

My impression from the looking that I've done so far is that the private insurance markets in Canada are just much less competitive than where we're at or we could buy insurance regionally, so we're also considering buying insurance outside of Canada to cover us for that time.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Harju

Has she applied for permanent residency yet? If she has applied and will be waiting to get permanent residence, she could apply for Alberta health care with a valid visitors permit (this is for Alberta but I would think other provinces would be similar). I do not think there is a blanket policy on this and eligibility is decided on a case by case basis, so private insurance would be wise up front.

https://www.alberta.ca/ahcip-temporary-residents.aspx
.

Thanks. I will look into that.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

Our pets will go through thorough health checks before we leave here. We're okay for savings, though with lost income from the transition to Canada we're not going to be looking to spend unnecessarily. I guess I'm just not familiar with vet costs in Canada or private insurance costs in Canada. Actually, it's a funny feeling to be ostensibly coming home yet at the same time feeling so unfamiliar with these types of things where I'm moving to.

My impression from the looking that I've done so far is that the private insurance markets in Canada are just much less competitive than where we're at or we could buy insurance regionally, so we're also considering buying insurance outside of Canada to cover us for that time.

From what I know, vet costs are pretty high in Calgary. I'm not familiar with other locations. However, I think that pet insurance is more for people who are living on the edge, that any emergency will be hard to handle. I believe there are also accident only insurance plans, that are a lot cheaper, which might be something to consider if you just want to cover an emergency that occurs during the transition time.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

From what I know, vet costs are pretty high in Calgary. I'm not familiar with other locations. However, I think that pet insurance is more for people who are living on the edge, that any emergency will be hard to handle. I believe there are also accident only insurance plans, that are a lot cheaper, which might be something to consider if you just want to cover an emergency that occurs during the transition time.

Thanks. I guess that more or less answers if for me that this is not something people generally do, so I would think it's also not worthwhile to buy pet insurance in Canada. We've started to see pet insurance increase here in Shanghai even though a lot of vet services are not that expensive. We don't bother with pet insurance here either and if it's not a large market won't bother with it in Canada.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

Our pets will go through thorough health checks before we leave here. We're okay for savings, though with lost income from the transition to Canada we're not going to be looking to spend unnecessarily. I guess I'm just not familiar with vet costs in Canada or private insurance costs in Canada. Actually, it's a funny feeling to be ostensibly coming home yet at the same time feeling so unfamiliar with these types of things where I'm moving to.

My impression from the looking that I've done so far is that the private insurance markets in Canada are just much less competitive than where we're at or we could buy insurance regionally, so we're also considering buying insurance outside of Canada to cover us for that time.

I had sent you a PM regarding the private health as well, but in case you didn’t see that, I can get you a quote or quotes on this. I would need a little more information and that would be best handled in private, but then you would have that cost for your considerations.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

From what I know, vet costs are pretty high in Calgary. I'm not familiar with other locations. However, I think that pet insurance is more for people who are living on the edge, that any emergency will be hard to handle. I believe there are also accident only insurance plans, that are a lot cheaper, which might be something to consider if you just want to cover an emergency that occurs during the transition time.

I wouldn't say this. I don't know anyone without pet insurance these days, except my brother who just dropped almost $10,000 on 2 surgeries for their dog.

Its much easier for almost anyone to pay $60/month then to have an expense like that.

[ken0042]

I have pet insurance on my dog so that my wife and I don't have to have a debate over adding $10-20K to the mortgage, or putting the dog down.

It isn't a "break even" proposition. It's there to cover a cost that I would have a hard time handling. Same reason why I have collision coverage on a $10K vehicle that is already paid off.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I have pet insurance on my dog so that my wife and I don't have to have a debate over adding $10-20K to the mortgage, or putting the dog down.

It isn't a "break even" proposition. It's there to cover a cost that I would have a hard time handling. Same reason why I have collision coverage on a $10K vehicle that is already paid off.

I thought so too. But when it came time to collect on a $6000 bill, they gave us $800 claiming a bunch of fine print limits, exclusions, maxes, fee schedules, etc.

[ken0042]

Maxes are the one thing I looked at. Most companies had those. I went with Trupanion who does not. However they do cost more. And my deductible is $1000. However yes, there is always fine print you need to look at.

That really sucks that they didn't come through for you.