For those moving to Spain with the luxury of an SI and free public health, you may want to skip this story but for those who will need health insurance, read on. It’s a personal story… my story and I will do my best to be factual. When we moved to Spain full time, during COVID, and just before BREXIT I was 4 years in remission from cancer and I was conscious that this may prove challenging when hunting down health insurance. And so, it proved.
I must have contacted virtually every insurance company in Spain with the same result. “Come back in 12 months and we’ll cover you.” Once you’ve been in remission for 5 years you’re considered, from an insurance perspective, ‘clear’ but until that 5-year marker you’re classified as high risk and insurance is almost impossible to come by.
We were on the point of giving up, when out of the blue an agent from *** in Malaga called me back and said they would provide cover which would be acceptable for my Spanish residency application. It was plain to see that my previous conditions were not covered but it was not overtly recorded on the documentation, so was accepted by the authorities and de facto for our Spanish residency application, which was all we really cared about.
I knew what I was doing, and I took the chance. If the cancer had returned, I would have gone back to the UK. (Thankfully so far, I’ve been lucky.) The other lesson I learnt was just how bureaucratic Spain is. There is a form for absolutely everything!
The Service
The euphoria we felt when we signed up didn’t last long. Yes, the company in question, got us into Spain, so I suppose we should be thankful for that, but overall, the four-year relationship my family and I shared with this company was depressing. Support was hit and miss at best and truth be told, we avoided medical treatment because we did not want to deal with the laborious application process. The contrast between the image portrayed by their marketing and reality was vivid.
The difficulty we had organizing a kidney stone operation was truly shocking! Our doctor carried out the scans and sent us to a hospital for a consultation where we got a form signed by a specialist. This was insufficient for the insurance company, however, and they insisted we returned to the hospital for another consultation. I sent countless emails asking exactly what was required but we didn’t get clear or satisfactory answers. It was a painful and depressing experience. The operation was never carried out, we just gave up.
If the general service levels were bad (which they were) their administration was something spectacular. I had always paid my annual subscription, in May, in advance. You can imagine, then, that I was somewhat aghast when I found they had taken out eu259 from my bank account the following January. And they continued to take money from account until April when they were finally persuaded that they had made a mistake. Did I get an apology? No, I didn’t and after finally getting my money refunded, they did it again the following month and to this day I still haven’t had that last payment refunded.
There is more but suffice to say it was a deeply unhappy relationship. I’m writing this because I hope others can learn from our mistake. Medical issues can be stressful and when you least need it, Spanish bureaucracy can bring you down!
Of course, by the nature of insurance it’s in the financial interests of the insurer not to pay out. I get that, so perhaps their lack of service is not so surprising. I have spoken to other ex-pats using other insurance providers and generally it’s not a particularly happy story. I guess the key is communication and not being a Spanish speaker made a bad situation a whole lot worse.
Perhaps, the best advice I can give, is to find a broker who will deal with your claims and any queries you may encounter, on your behalf. When you are seeking medical assistance, you need someone on your side. On that basis, anyone looking for help, send me an email on andrew@castlehomes.es and I’ll introduce you to a multilingual broker who I am confident will provide you with a far better service than my family received.