Private Health Insurance

Obviously Spanish.

You mean Non-Lucrative visa ?

You need a Spanish healthcare insurer. If you step inside many of the private hospitals, they have large display boards in the lobbies which identify which insurers they work with. They are all Spanish registered companies/mutuals.

Additionally, in my experience, Spanish companies offer much better value than British ones.

There is of course Sanitas, which is the totally independent Spanish version of BUPA.

Why "obviously"? I have watched videos and read articles from Spanish Lawyers stating that the insurance can be from a Spanish OR a UK company, hence my question. But thanks for your input.

Thanks Kelvin - yes, I meant non lucrative. Thats a good tip regarding the hospitals and the fact that the Spanish companies tend to be cheaper - cheers👍🏻

Something else to bear in mind when choosing a private healthcare insurer ...

When you gain Residency/Visa/TIE, your PHI will, at least for a while, become your only source of healthcare. So accessibility and quality are the important factors.

My wife and I have our health insurance with DKV. My wife became seriously ill in 2019, and they have been absolutely fantastic. 

BUT we have had to travel to obtain treatment and tests, mostly to the Quiron Hospital in Murcia. We have also used (I think) 8 or 9 other medical facilities in Murcia, Elche and Torrevieja. 

This seems to be quite normal. We have met numerous other people "doing the rounds" - each having different insurers.

Into the detail .... insurers may quote the various clinics and hospitals that they use, but in reality, they pick and choose exactly what services they contract for at which hospital. So if your insurer's brochure says that they use (say) Quiron or IMED hospitals/clinics, the city you have to go to depends on the medical service you need.   

We use a GP in our village (not the health centre) and she acts as the gateway into the DKV system - and she is very good at it. 

Our local GP works with DKV (which may be why our local insurance broker recommended DKV). So it seems that the most important thing is to have an insurer who works with your local GP.

We have a neighbour who uses a different insurer. Her nearest insurer-affiliated GP is 50 minutes away by car.

That's great info Kelvin. Many thanks for taking the time to reply in such detail 😊

Hi, it looks like we are going to retain a house in the UK and buy a holiday home in Spain.

Can anyone give me advice on health insurance please, would I have to buy a separate policy if we were to stay longer than the current 60 days one that covers us for travel as well.

I understand the 90 in 180 rule for the visa it’s just for health insurance purposes 

When we bought our Spanish home in 2017, we were unsure if it would be a holiday home or a permanent home.

As it happens, Spain became our permanent home, so we now have TIE/health insurance, etc.

But in 2017 we knew we would be spending our 90 days in Spain, which exceeded the travel/health insurance we had as standard from our UK bank account bundle.

We found we could buy a 90-day holiday/health/repatriation insurance very cheaply. We bought it on one of the online comparison sites. I think it only cost around £100 each (maybe less).  

Due to Covid, these policies may not be available to buy online today, but I expect that they we return once we have vaccination passports and life returns to some sort of normality.