5 Things You Didn’t Know About...Investing in Private Health Insurance in Israel
The words “investment” and “insurance” don’t normally go together. After all, one of them you hope will be of use in helping you to achieve some future goal, and the other you hope to never be of use at all!
But if you speak to any good financial planner, they will tell you that the right type of insurance should absolutely form part of your overall financial strategy, and none more so than certain types of private medical insurance.
Consider this. There is an unfortunate diagnosis, and the best surgeon doesn't come cheap. Nor does certain medication. But when its our health at stake, no cost is too much. Where do people take the money from? Their assets, and their hard-earned savings. As well as potentially affecting future quality of life, or even life itself, Private medical insurance can protect those assets by having the insurance company pay these high costs, leaving your investments and assets intact.
With the ever-increasing strain on Israel’s public health system well-documented in recent years, more and more Israelis are turning to this insurance. We therefore thought it appropriate to lay out a few of the basics that you may not have realized about this insurance here in Israel:
1. The main reasons that Israelis take out private health insurance is for convenience, shorter waiting times, cover for rare and complicated conditions, and most important of all, financial protection.
2. Private Health insurance is actually a collective term for a group of sub-policies, each of which cover something else, and each of which you can decide to buy or not to buy, the main ones being:
Private Surgeries in Israel
Surgeries Overseas and Alternative Treatments
Medicines not included in the National Medicine Basket
Transplants Overseas
Private Scans and Consultations
3. About 40% of Israelis are estimated to hold private health insurance, and this number is increasing year on year.
4. Private Health insurance should not be confused with the additional levels of cover provided by the Kupot Cholim (e.g. Maccabi Sheli, Meuhdet See, etc), which form part of the public health system.
5. The cost of private health insurance in Israel can often be considerably cheaper than in the country you made Aliyah from, especially the US and UK, with the cheapest parts costing no more than 10-15 Shekel per month.
Of course there is much more to discuss, which we hope to do later on in the series.
In the meantime though, stay healthy!
Click here to contact us and learn more, or to get a quote for private health insurance in Israel
