International health insurance for families

A family moving to Europe on a long-stay visa is not covered by a single household policy. Immigration officers check one certificate per applicant, so a spouse, each child, and any other dependent named on the visa all need their own compliant document, usually with matching start dates and cover levels. One weak certificate, whether it is a wrong date, a gap in cover, or a plan that falls short of the required minimums, can stall the whole family's file while every other document is otherwise ready. That risk multiplies with household size, since a family of five has five separate chances for something to be slightly off. Our guide to family health insurance for a visa application walks through what each certificate needs to show, and it is worth reading before you request quotes so every member's paperwork lines up from the first submission.

Every child age 0 to 17 pays one flat rate per year on every cover level, the same amount whether the child is age 1 or age 16. That flat structure means a parent can price every child in the household with one number per plan level, instead of running an age calculation for each child separately. The five annual rates per child are:

• Essential: $308
• Major Medical: $566
• Standard: $853
• Comprehensive: $1,151
• Fully Comprehensive: $1,439

Prices are per person per year on annual billing from the 2026 rate card; adult rates depend on age. To see the full household total, including adults at their own age-based rate, use the pricing calculator, which adds every family member into one figure rather than leaving parents to add the numbers by hand.

Adults on the same visa are priced differently from children. Adult cover starts from $392 per year at age 18 on the Essential level, and the rate rises with age, so a 45-year-old parent and an 18-year-old dependent will not pay the same figure on the identical plan. Because children sit on a flat rate regardless of age, the age-based variation in a family's total comes mainly from the adults. Many parents ask whether every family member needs the same cover level or whether levels can be mixed, for example Standard for the parents and Comprehensive for a child with more anticipated appointments. Whether levels can be mixed for your household is confirmed on the quote call; what matters for the file is that each certificate independently meets the visa's minimum requirements. Our guide to choosing a plan level compares what each of the five levels includes, useful before deciding whether to keep the household uniform or set levels member by member.

Before comparing plan levels, it helps to know the boundaries that apply to every member of the family regardless of which level is chosen. Pre-existing conditions are not covered, including a condition no one in the family was aware of at the time of application, so accurate medical history for each person matters more than picking a higher level. Cover is worldwide, but it excludes treatment received in the United States, which matters for families who expect to travel back for visits. This is also not travel insurance, so short trips are not the product's purpose even though the cover travels with the policyholder. Plans built with no deductible remove one variable from the family budget, since there is no per-claim amount to pay before cover responds, which can make comparing certificates against each other simpler.

Households have more moving parts than a single applicant, and the timeline reflects that. Visa appointments for a family are often booked together, so every certificate needs to be ready by the same date, and the cover itself needs to run long enough to satisfy the visa's minimum term for each person named on it. Our guide on how long visa health insurance must last explains how that minimum is set and why it can catch out families who buy cover for a shorter period than the visa actually requires. Once you know the required start dates and durations for everyone in the household, it helps to work from a single list rather than tracking separate certificates from memory. Our visa insurance checklist lays out what a family file needs member by member, so nothing is missing when the appointment date arrives.

Covered Abroad is an introducer, not the insurer. We arrange cover for your family through our partner insurer, and once you request a quote, our team calls to talk through the household, confirm cover levels for each member, and answer questions about the paperwork, with no obligation to proceed. If you are not sure which level fits the family yet, you can check your requirements first, or go straight to request a quote once you know roughly what the household needs. For US families specifically, our guides on health insurance for Americans moving to Europe and on moving to France from the US cover country-specific detail that applies before the call, so the conversation with our team can focus on your family's plan levels and pricing. If one parent is self-employed, cover for freelancers handles that side of the household.