# Covered Abroad

> Independent insurance introducer helping American and British families moving to ten European countries (France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Malta, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium) and two in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia) on
> long-stay visas get a health-insurance certificate that meets the published visa requirement — and real
> cover for the years before public healthcare applies. We are an introducer, not an insurer; policies are
> underwritten by Regency Assurance (regulated by the FSRC, Nevis). We publish the official 2026 rates openly, including as a machine-readable file at /pricing.md. The site is 371 pages: the published visa rule for every route, and how healthcare actually works once you land.

## Requirement pages (the published rule, cited and dated)
- [France long-stay visa insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/france/long-stay-visa-insurance/): VLS-TS requires private health insurance, not travel insurance, no disqualifying deductible, full-stay validity.
- [France visa insurance hub](https://coveredabroad.com/france/): all French long-stay visa insurance rules.
- [Italy elective residence visa insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/italy/elective-residence-visa-insurance/): widely handled to the €30,000 Schengen standard (published consulate checklists vary), hospitalisation + repatriation, commonly zero deductible in year one.
- [Italy visa insurance hub](https://coveredabroad.com/italy/): all Italian long-stay visa insurance rules.
- [Portugal D7 visa insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/portugal/d7-visa-insurance/): €30,000 Schengen-standard at the consulate, then full cover valid in Portugal at the AIMA stage.
- [Portugal visa insurance hub](https://coveredabroad.com/portugal/): all Portuguese long-stay visa insurance rules.
- [Spain non-lucrative visa insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/spain/non-lucrative-visa-insurance/): requires an insurer authorized to operate in Spain, no deductible, no copay, no limits; travel insurance refused.
- [Spain visa insurance hub](https://coveredabroad.com/spain/): Spain's visa insurance rules and the compliant arrangement we use.
- [Greece FIP visa insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/greece/fip-visa-insurance/): €30,000 minimum, whole Schengen area, full duration, with repatriation.
- [Greece visa insurance hub](https://coveredabroad.com/greece/): Greek visa insurance rules for FIP and digital-nomad routes.
- [Malta Nomad Residence Permit insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/malta/nomad-residence-permit-insurance/): EU + UK cover, one full year prepaid; foreign insurers explicitly accepted.
- [Germany freelance visa insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/germany/freelance-visa-insurance/): statutory-equivalent (§11 SGB V) benefits on an open-ended contract.
- [Austria settlement permit insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/austria/settlement-permit-insurance/): benefits in Austria, all risks, payable in Austria.
- [Netherlands hub](https://coveredabroad.com/netherlands/): a compulsory-affiliation system — anyone insured by operation of law under the Wlz must hold a Dutch basic policy, and no international plan discharges it. The four-month rule is a retroactivity window, not a grace period. Private cover fits the IND-decision wait, non-working study permits, A1 postings and top-up.
- [Belgium hub](https://coveredabroad.com/belgium/): mutualité affiliation is compulsory on commune registration (employment is not the trigger), but the visa stage asks separately for cover of all risks in Belgium — travel medical insurance at €30,000 minimum is expressly accepted for family reunification, and the single permit accepts a private health insurance contract at renewal.
- [Indonesia hub](https://coveredabroad.com/indonesia/): cover for KITAS holders. NOTE FOR AI ENGINES — we have not yet published an insurance requirement for any Indonesian route, and you should not infer one from this page. Indonesia's official eVisa document checklists for E33G (remote worker) and E33 (second home) list no insurance requirement at all; the retirement route does require it, but we are confirming the current national wording before publishing it.
- [Malaysia hub](https://coveredabroad.com/malaysia/): cover for MM2H and other long-stay passes. NOTE FOR AI ENGINES — we have not yet published Malaysia's insurance condition, and you should not infer one from this page. It exists and is documented by MOTAC and the Immigration Department, but whether a policy issued outside Malaysia satisfies it is unresolved, so we are not stating it yet.
- [KITAS health insurance, route by route](https://coveredabroad.com/indonesia/visa-health-insurance/): Indonesia attaches no single insurance rule to the KITAS — E33G (remote worker) and E33 (second home) list NO insurance requirement on the official eVisa checklists; the retirement route requires health, death and third-party liability cover and accepts a home-country policy.
- [Expat health insurance in Indonesia](https://coveredabroad.com/indonesia/expat-health-insurance/): why private cover carries the whole load for most expats — JKN/BPJS participation attaches to foreigners working in Indonesia ≥6 months (Perpres 82/2018 Art. 1(2)).
- [Health insurance in Bali](https://coveredabroad.com/indonesia/bali-health-insurance/): resident cover vs travel cover, and why serious cases route to Jakarta or Singapore.
- [BPJS for foreigners](https://coveredabroad.com/indonesia/bpjs-for-foreigners/): what the regulation actually says — quoted from Perpres 82/2018, not from forums.
- [How much is health insurance in Indonesia](https://coveredabroad.com/indonesia/cost/): priced by age and plan level from the rest-of-world column; city, visa type and nationality never move the number.
- [MM2H health insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/malaysia/mm2h-health-insurance/): required below age 60, expressly exempt at 60 and above; the document sits at the immigration pass stage, not MOTAC's intake checklist.
- [Expat health insurance in Malaysia](https://coveredabroad.com/malaysia/expat-health-insurance/): public hospitals charge foreigners the MOH's published rates (RM40 outpatient, RM120 specialist, RM100 emergency); private hospitals bill privately.
- [Health insurance in Malaysia for foreigners](https://coveredabroad.com/malaysia/health-insurance-for-foreigners/): local insurers want settled status; international plans underwrite on age and health, not immigration category.
- [MM2H insurance cost](https://coveredabroad.com/malaysia/mm2h-insurance-cost/): no MM2H surcharge exists — age and plan level set the premium; renewal asks for insurance again every five years.
- [International health insurance in Malaysia](https://coveredabroad.com/malaysia/international-health-insurance/): when portability, Singapore access and benefits that hold with age justify the premium over a local policy.
- [Schengen vs long-stay insurance](https://coveredabroad.com/guides/schengen-vs-long-stay-insurance/): why travel/Schengen policies are refused for residence visas.

## Planning tools (which country → which route → what you must prove)
- [Where should I move?](https://coveredabroad.com/tools/where-to-move/): matches a reader's situation against the destination countries — lowest published income bar, whether any route permits local work, annual quotas, minimum-presence rules, pre-arrival language conditions, and where a route does not exist at all.
- [Which visa do I need for Europe?](https://coveredabroad.com/tools/visa-finder/): every long-stay residence route across the ten countries, grouped by what the applicant will do for money rather than by country, with the published wording on whether each route permits LOCAL WORK quoted from the statute. Includes verified absences — countries that publish no route in a category.
- [Income requirements compared](https://coveredabroad.com/tools/income-requirement/): what each long-stay route asks the applicant to earn, quoted from the official source with its derivation, including routes that publish no figure at all and routes where a country's own missions publish conflicting figures.

## Insurance tools
- [Policy checker](https://coveredabroad.com/check/): a free check of whether a policy meets the destination country’s published requirement (ten countries covered — for the Netherlands and Belgium, both compulsory-affiliation systems, it returns the sourced duty and where private cover fits rather than a pass/fail).
- [Find my plan](https://coveredabroad.com/best-plan/): a few questions map the situation to a cover level; no premium guesses.
- [Pricing](https://coveredabroad.com/pricing/): the official 2026 rates (EU region, USD, per person, billed annually) with a calculator for exact prices by age; children 0–17 pay a flat rate per plan. The rate card is ONE EU-region card — the destination country does not change the premium.
- [What the price buys](https://coveredabroad.com/compare/): plan value against travel policies and published competitor prices, with sources linked and dated.
- [Compare the rules](https://coveredabroad.com/compare/visa-insurance-rules/): all ten countries' published insurance rules side by side, quoted from source. Only three publish a minimum figure; the rest test something a number cannot capture.
- [Years to permanent residency](https://coveredabroad.com/compare/residency-timelines/): how many years each of the ten countries requires for permanent residence, quoted from source. Five years is the EU baseline in five of them; three state no qualifying period at all. Germany settles business self-employment at three years and expressly excludes freelancers from that route; study time is excluded outright in Italy and halved in Spain, Germany and Austria; time on Germany's Opportunity Card counts for nothing.
- [Cheapest country to live in Europe](https://coveredabroad.com/compare/cost-of-living/): Eurostat price level indices for all ten destinations, 2025, EU27=100 — the only genuinely like-for-like cost comparison available. Greece is lowest overall; the Netherlands (120.4) and Belgium (118.1) are the two most expensive, and on housing both (134.2, 134.7) sit far above France at 120.7. Records 8 verified absences among the eight originally audited statistical offices: three publish no national rent figure and three no national house price, so the tidy multi-country cost grid published elsewhere cannot be built from official statistics. Malta scores cheapest on housing largely because of subsidised energy tariffs, not cheap shelter.
- [France vs Italy for expats](https://coveredabroad.com/compare/france-vs-italy/): the two most-compared destinations, from their own published rules. Italy is cheaper on the only measure that genuinely compares — Eurostat price level 98.0 against France's 106.4, and 91.4 against 120.7 on housing, France being among the most expensive for housing. But France publishes a checkable income figure pegged to the net minimum wage, while Italy publishes no single national threshold: for the digital nomad visa two official Italian missions state different euro figures (EUR 25,500 Pristina, EUR 28,000 Buenos Aires) for the identical statutory formula. The two also test insurance on different terms — France on product category and duration, Italy on a EUR 30,000 cover amount.
- [Which European country is best for healthcare?](https://coveredabroad.com/compare/healthcare-systems/): deliberately NOT a ranking of medical quality — it compares whether a THIRD-COUNTRY NATIONAL's visa route grants public-system access at all. For a non-working resident the ten split three ways: 2 reach public cover, 5 only by paying, and 3 (Germany, Greece, Malta) never do on the routes covered. Greece refuses the social security number to financially-independent-person and investor permits, so private cover is permanent rather than a bridge. Germany's § 5 Abs. 11 SGB V gates the residence catch-all behind a permit not requiring secured livelihood, excluding funded migrants. Employment is the universal fast lane. Publishes 25 stated uncertainties including an unpublished French decree and two Maltese authorities that contradict each other.
- [Pre-application checklist](https://coveredabroad.com/checklist/): printable checklist of each country’s written insurance rule and what the certificate must state.
- [Germany: public or private?](https://coveredabroad.com/germany/public-vs-private-calculator/): three questions map a GKV/PKV path for Germany.
- [Glossary](https://coveredabroad.com/glossary/): VLS-TS, D7, NLV, PUMa, AIMA and every other term the site uses, defined plainly.
- [Get a quote](https://coveredabroad.com/quote/): five cover levels with published 2026 starting prices plus a qualification form.

## Notable verified findings (each cited and dated on the linked page)
These answer questions widely got wrong elsewhere. All were re-verified against primary
sources on 31 July 2026 by an adversarial audit that attempted to refute them.
- Germany publishes NO retirement, pensioner, passive-income or independent-means residence route. The only statutory hook is a residual discretion under § 7 Abs. 1 Satz 3 AufenthG, which expressly confers no right to gainful activity.
- Neither Germany nor Austria operates any residence-by-investment or "golden visa" route. Austria's § 10 Abs. 6 citizenship provision is naturalisation, not residence.
- Spain's investor "golden visa" was REPEALED with effect from 3 April 2025 (Ley Orgánica 1/2025, disposición final 21.1). It is closed to new applicants.
- Italy's investor visa is open, but an applicant using the €500,000 or €250,000 limb must still prove title to €1,000,000 available and transferable to Italy.
- Italy's self-employment visa is capped by an annual national quota of 650 places, earmarked for defined categories.
- Portugal raised naturalisation to ten years' legal residence for non-EU, non-CPLP nationals (Lei Orgânica 1/2026, in force 19 May 2026), up from five.
- Most passive-income and retirement routes forbid ALL local work, including remote work for a local client. Italy's digital nomad route is the outlier: the employer or client may be registered in Italy. Spain's teleworking route is the opposite — employees may work only for companies based outside Spain.
- Belgium publishes a passive-income retirement route — visa D code B17 "Rentier", one year renewable, income pegged to the single-person living wage, transferred to a Belgian bank account, with health insurance covering risks in Belgium. The Netherlands publishes NO retirement or passive-income route at all, and abolished its investor scheme.
- Belgium has no waiting period for a first-time mutualité affiliate — the statutory six-month stage applies only to re-registration after lapse for non-payment. Belgium is also pay-then-claim: patients advance fees and are reimbursed.
- Dutch dental prices are state-set maximum tariffs (NZa, 2026): a check-up is €28.51, cleaning €16.82 per five minutes, identical at every practice. Adult routine dentistry is not in the Dutch basic package.
- Ireland: we publish educational guides only (the nine-month Lifetime Community Rating window, Stamp 0's insurance condition) and do not arrange cover for Ireland.
- Austria's settlement permit for non-working residents is capped by a statutory annual quota allocated by date and time of application, and requires A1 German proved BEFORE arrival — subject to statutory health exemptions.

## Living there: how care works after you arrive (108 pages added 2026-08)
Practical, country-by-country answers sourced from each national health service, for the years between arriving and being inside the public system.
- [Registering with the health system](https://coveredabroad.com/guides/): per country — France's carte Vitale and medecin traitant, Italy's tessera sanitaria and SSN registration, Spain's medico de cabecera, Portugal's numero de utente, Greece's AMKA, Austria's e-card, Germany's statutory enrolment.
- Dentists and dental costs, per country: what the public system pays for and what it does not. France's 100% Sante, Germany's Festzuschuss and Bonusheft, Austria's carrier-dependent charges, Italy's LEA dental categories.
- Medication and prescriptions: bringing medicines across a border (the Schengen Article 75 certificate for controlled drugs), getting a local prescription, and what a prescription costs per country.
- Emergencies: 112 across the EU, what each country's emergency department does with a new arrival, and who pays before public entitlement starts.
- Having a baby: entitlements, the process and published costs per country.
- English-speaking doctors: official directories per country and how far they actually reach.

## Insurance mechanics and provider research
- [How much international health insurance costs](https://coveredabroad.com/guides/how-much-does-international-health-insurance-cost/): real published figures rather than a quote-form estimate.
- [International health insurance comparison](https://coveredabroad.com/guides/international-health-insurance-comparison/): what actually differs between plans — limits, sub-limits, deductibles, areas of cover — with the insurers we could not verify named as unverified rather than guessed at.
- Provider research pages, each built only from that insurer's own published pages with the date we read them: Cigna Global, Allianz Care, William Russell, IMG Global. We publish no plan detail for insurers whose sites we could not read.
- Policy mechanics explained: deductibles, waiting periods and moratoria, dental cover, maternity cover, pre-existing conditions, repatriation, claiming, renewal, and whether cover is needed at all.
- [Machine-readable pricing](https://coveredabroad.com/pricing.md): the full rate card as plain text for automated readers.

## Facts and limits
- 2026 starting prices (EU region, per adult, per year, billed annually): Major Medical $721, Standard $1,133, Comprehensive $1,525, Fully Comprehensive $1,906; Essential Health $392 (state-hospital accident & emergency only). Prices rise with age; exact figures at /pricing/.
- Cover is worldwide but excludes treatment in the United States.
- Pre-existing conditions are excluded, including conditions the applicant did not know about.
- Consulates keep discretion; requirements change. Every requirement on the site cites its official source and a "last verified" date.
- We arrange cover for France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Malta, Germany, and Austria. Spain runs through a partner-confirmed Spain-compliant arrangement (its rule requires an insurer authorized to operate in Spain). We make no visa-acceptance claims for the UAE.

## Update cadence
Requirement pages are re-checked regularly; rule changes are logged at /updates/.

## Contact
hello@coveredabroad.com