You are required to retain national health insurance in many cases. However, the national health insurance coverage may not be attuned to your situation or may not offer enough coverage. The following explains why it may be advisable to take out additional health insurance in addition to national health insurance. Even if you have a country-of-residence package, additional health insurance may be convenient.
There is information on:
National health insurance and additional insurance to not provide unlimited reimbursement.
Dutch basic national health insurance offers global coverage. However, you are not reimbursed for costs incurred abroad to any greater extent than you would be in the Netherlands. You will have to pay any excess yourself.
You may also retain your additional health insurance. Many additional insurance policies reimburse treatments abroad up to twice the Dutch rate. There is often also a maximum stay abroad for such additional insurance. You can ask your own health insurance provider whether you can retain additional insurance and what coverage is available abroad.
If the coverage of the additional insurance does not offer what you are seeking, you can consider cancelling it. But do ask how you can be insured again when you return to the Netherlands. Read this to find out why this is important.
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SOS expenses covered?
You may have to deal with expenses specifically related to your stay abroad. For example, there is the cost of repatriation (or the cost of transport of mortal remains to any other place) in the event of death, so check that these types of expenses are covered by your insurance.
OOM’s SOS insurance offers a solution for these expenses. Read more about the benefits of OOM’s SOS insurance.
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Coverage for terrorism and for War and Kindred Risks?
Not every country is as safe as the Netherlands. This is why it is vital to determine whether you will be needing coverage for medical expenses arising from terrorism or from War and Kindred Risks.
Global Traveler insurance and Dutch national health insurance
You can take out Global Traveler Health Insurance or Young Global Traveler Health Insurance as a supplement to Dutch basic national health insurance. You will then be paying premiums for both forms of insurance. Since Global Traveler Health Insurance or Young Global Traveler Health Insurance is complete health insurance, it is not possible to obtain a discount on it.
Cost Management
You can, however, opt to take a voluntarily higher excess for the compulsory national health insurance and/or Global Traveler Health Insurance or Young Global Traveler Health Insurance. You will then be able to choose where to claim the invoices first. If you claim through Dutch national health insurance first, you can subsequently claim the costs that do not qualify for reimbursement, or which fall under the excess, back from OOM Insurance. Or, equally, vice versa: you can subsequently claim invoices that fall under the excess of your Global Traveler Insurance back from Dutch national health insurance.
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