International health insurance in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia expects every expatriate worker to be insured through their employer. IPMIEMEA explains what that cover usually includes, where international health insurance adds value for expats and their families, and how to compare plans before you commit.

How healthcare works for expats in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has a public health system that mainly serves its citizens and a large private sector that serves almost everyone else. As an expat, your day-to-day care and your hospital treatment will take place in private clinics and hospitals, paid for by insurance. The best private hospitals in the main cities are modern and well equipped. Quality varies more widely outside them, and expats tend to gravitate to a small number of well-regarded facilities in each city.

For most expats the insurance in question is the policy their employer arranges. It is a local policy, written by an insurer licensed in the Kingdom, and it is built to meet a national standard rather than to suit any one person. That is the starting point. International private medical insurance (IPMI) is the layer that expats add when the starting point is not enough.

An international plan pays for private treatment within an agreed area of cover, which can be regional, worldwide excluding the USA, or worldwide. It is held in your own name and is not tied to your employer or your residence permit.

The employer insurance requirement, in general terms

Saudi Arabia operates a mandatory cooperative health insurance system for expatriate workers and their dependants. In general terms, the employer must arrange a policy from a locally licensed insurer, and the policy must provide at least a standard package of benefits set by the regulator. Issuing and renewing an expatriate's residence permit is generally linked to that policy being in place.

Within that framework, employers choose the level of plan. Plans are commonly tiered by the class of hospital you can use and the limits that apply. A senior manager and a junior employee at the same company may hold very different cover. Dependants are often covered, but sometimes at a lower tier than the employee.

Because the detail is set by regulation and by your employer's choices, confirm the current position before you rely on anything written here. Your employer's HR or government-relations team will know what policy you hold, and the regulator publishes the current rules. Our guide to Gulf mandatory insurance and top-up cover covers the common ground across the region.

Why expats in Saudi Arabia add international cover

Expats in the Kingdom buy international cover on top of the mandatory policy for practical reasons.

• Class of hospital. Lower-tier local plans restrict you to a defined network. If the hospital you would choose for a serious illness is outside it, you pay the difference or go elsewhere.
• Treatment outside the Kingdom. Local policies generally cover treatment in Saudi Arabia only. Expats who want the option of complex treatment at home, or in another regional centre, need a plan with a wider area of cover and with evacuation included.
• Travel. Trips to see family, business travel around the Gulf and holidays in Europe fall outside a Saudi-only policy. Many expats carry a Saudi policy and an international one for exactly this reason.
• Family cover at a proper level. Where dependants are covered at a basic tier, or not at all, a single international family plan is often the simplest fix.
• Continuity. Employer cover ends with the contract. Expats who plan to retire abroad, move to another country or take a break between jobs want a plan that renews in their own name.

Travel insurance covers none of this properly. It is built for emergencies on short trips. See our guide to international health insurance in EMEA for a plain comparison of the three types of cover.

The decisions that change your cover

These are the choices that move the quote and determine whether the plan does what you need. Decide them first.

Our guide to inpatient versus outpatient cover explains the difference between the two in more detail.

Pre-existing conditions and underwriting

Local employer plans in Saudi Arabia are group policies, and they often cover conditions you already have because the whole workforce is insured together. An individual international plan is different. The insurer looks at your own medical history and decides what it will cover.

The two common approaches are full medical underwriting, where you declare your history and receive a written decision on each condition, and moratorium underwriting, where no questions are asked but recent conditions are excluded automatically for a period. Some insurers will consider matching the terms of an existing plan when you switch, but you have to ask, and you must not cancel the old plan before the new one is confirmed.

The point to remember is that an employer plan covering a condition today does not mean an international plan will. Our guide to pre-existing conditions explains each approach and what to declare.

Insurers worth reading about first

Nomi quotes the insurers on our insurer pages for residents of Saudi Arabia where the insurer offers cover there. Some starting points:

• Cigna Global and Allianz Care are modular plans where outpatient, dental and evacuation are added as options, which makes it easy to build a top-up layer.
• Now Health WorldCare and IMG Global are often compared with them. Our Cigna versus IMG page shows how two different plan structures line up.
• Bupa Global publishes its limits in pounds sterling and suits British expats who plan to return to the UK.

Whatever you shortlist, ask each insurer whether its policy can be used alongside the mandatory Saudi policy and how the two interact when you claim.

How to prepare a comparison

Have these five things ready and the comparison is quick.

1. The benefit table of your employer policy, including the hospital class and the limits.
2. Who is to be covered, with ages and nationalities.
3. Where you would want treatment for a serious illness, and where you travel.
4. Your medical history.
5. Whether you want outpatient cover, and how much excess you are comfortable with.

For a sense of how premiums in Saudi Arabia sit against other countries, the HealthiNomad Premium Index publishes a country table, and our cost guide explains the drivers.

Frequently asked questions

This page is general information, not personal or medical advice. Prices are indicative and confirmed by the insurer at underwriting. For advice on your situation, speak to a regulated broker.