Health Coverage for a PR application for UK Citizen (Outside Application)

[paulonaboat]

My wife and I have applied for PR for her, from outside of Canada. I am a Canadian Citizen, and she is a UK citizen. We (very) recently learned that she is pregnant. Great News! But has initiated a flurry of planning, fact checking, and second guessing.

We would like for her to have the child in Canada, specifically Toronto, Ontario. We are comfortable paying for the costs of having a child in Canada but without being a recognized resident of Ontario. While we have more to research to do and calling of hospitals and medical care providers, it seems safe to budget approximately $10 000 to this. We are fine with this and are comfortable beyond that should it be neccesary, to a reasonable point (ie less than $30 000 - $40 000. What we are concerned about is the possibility of significant complications arising and racking up an insurmountable bill.

As this is a surprise, we did not obtain travel or visitors insurance before getting pregnant. Even if we had it seems the insurance plans on offer only cover up to within 9 weeks of the expected due date. We are in the process of getting this coverage anyway, as it will give peace of mind against emergnecies as we lead up to the big day, but we are working on a safety net for the remaining time period of 9 weeks.

We are working on obtaining an CIC confirmation letter. This, along with 3 months of residence in Ontario, would allow us to get a Health Card for my wife. But as we applied for her PR from outside of Canada my understanding is that these letters are not issued. We will only be getting the letter confirming my approval as a sponsor and the forwarding of our application to the London office. OHIP indicated we should get together as much information as possible, wait till she has been here three months, and go in person to their office to see what can be done. If anyone has been through this process and is able to volunteer any helpful info that would be great!

Any help greatly appreciated, be it regarding a good insurance company you've used, a good hospital that worked well with patients paying privately, or experience getting OHIP coverage while waiting for an Out of Country PR application to be processed.

Thanks!

 

[computergeek]

When did you apply? Given current processing times, if you JUST sent in your application, it might be done by the time she is due to deliver (London has excellent processing times.) If the file has already been transferred to London and you have a file number, I'd send along information to the visa office that she is pregnant. It probably won't make any difference, but it cannot hurt, either, and perhaps you might get lucky and convince a visa officer to send a letter saying the file is in process. I'd also mention to them that if they want an interview it'd be best to schedule it quickly (since clearly she will reach a point where she cannot fly.)

Note that your child is immediately covered upon birth. Thus, if there are complications for the baby, you would be covered by OHIP. Only your wife's costs would need to be covered.

Further, since you are comfortable with $10,000 in costs, you should find an insurance broker capable of finding you a policy with a $10,000 deductible. The actual risk of payout is low and with a high deductible it will keep the cost in-line. There are a number of very good UK based insurance brokerages that offer such coverage (and my experience is that UK insurance companies are far more flexible than Canadian companies.) The one I've used is Health Care International (http://www.healthcareinternational.com) They list policies with coverage for pregnancy complications, for example (which is really what you are trying to insure against.)

I've researched health insurance for Canada before. I found that Manulife (via https://www.safevisit.ca) would write a policy for a UK visitor for up to one year, with a policy limit of $100k and $250 deductible for $1800. They didn't ask medical questions (although it's possible the policy would have fine print). Just name, age, address in Canada, etc. In your situation I'd still work directly with a company because you don't want them to refuse to pay after the fact.

Congratulations, by the way. It's a shame that what should be a joyous event is complicated by the immigration process and the concerns that it causes.

 

[computergeek]

Another thought occurred to me after that initial post. This IS a bit of a stretch, but given your circumstances I thought I'd at least throw it out there for consideration.

Specifically, your wife could apply for a Temporary Resident Permit on Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds. The reason this is a stretch is because she's not been deemed inadmissible (the purpose of a TRP). However, at this point I think one could reasonably argue that she's not ABLE to leave the country (which, ironically, would make her inadmissible, since it is the nature of visiting to be temporary in nature) due to her circumstances.

According to the OHIP site (http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ohip/eligibility.html) a TRP with category 89 ("early admission, family class") is eligible for OHIP.

Here is the specific case under which I would argue that a TRP is justified:

The Minister’s delegates may issue a permit to allow foreign nationals to enter Canada before
they satisfy the requirements for permanent residence. The officer must be certain this action is
essential.
The requirements are normally routine processing steps and may or may not be stated in the
Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Examples include the completion of background checks
or a medical examination. They do not include the waiting period to apply for criminal
rehabilitation.
If an officer has any reason to believe that a foreign national could not meet all requirements for
permanent residence after completing all processing steps, early admission is not appropriate. If
the officer already knows that the foreign national is inadmissible for any reason, the officer
should not grant early admission

Source: "OP 20 Temporary Resident Permits" (available on the CIC website at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/op/op20-eng.pdf)

The fee for a TRP application is $200. From what I could tell, London does not have its own TRP form (Buffalo does) so according to the CIC website (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/inadmissibility/permits.asp) you fill out the TRV application and then include a cover letter and additional information.

If you decide to go this route, I would provide them with:

- A letter explaining that you are requesting a TRP under the terms of OP 20's "early admission" policy because your wife has recently discovered that she is pregnant and while she can return to the UK (NHS will cover her) you do not have the liberty of temporarily relocating to the UK to care for her and be present at the birth of your child.
- A copy of your application to CIC. This should include the receipts for payment (they can look this up to confirm it.)
- Evidence that she is pregnant (a letter from the doctor, for example).
- Her UCI (I think that should go on the TRV application in any case) if you have it.
- Copy of her passport
- $200 fee

The letter should be VERY clear: what you are requesting (a "Temporary Resident Permit" or "Minister's Permit") and under what ground ("Early admission") and I would cite to OP 20. The rest of this is all just backup material.

Send that via courier to them. If you can, provide them with a courier slip to return it to you (I know the US would only accept FedEx, I don't know about London.) Because she is visa exempt, what they should do is send her a letter confirming that she's been granted the TRP and she can then have that processed by CBSA, but they might request that she send her passport when it is approved (DEFINITELY do that via courier, with a pre-paid return envelope.)

This isn't the regular CIC queue - its a separate queue - although odds are it will land on the desk of the same visa officer processing your wife's application IF they have someone assigned to the file. Frankly, that would be ideal because this is a no-brainer to issue in exactly this circumstance. As long as there are NO issues with her application (e.g., a clean police clearance) odds are you'll get this back fairly quickly. Fair warning: TRPs can take 3-6 months to approve. Early admission doesn't usually take as long, but as always there are NO guarantees in this business.

With the TRP (coded "89") your wife is then eligible for OHIP.

Good luck!

 

[paulonaboat]

Wow, Computergeek, this is great information. When I showed my wife your posts her exact reaction was "computergeek is amazing!"

Great suggestion regarding the insurance with a high deductible, I hadn't thought of that angle. Also for the recommendation on the insurance company.

The idea of the TRP is really, really interesting. I can see that it is a fine line, but one that seems to be navigable. Thanks very much for putting it in such a logical format and taking the time to outline the entire argument. It makes great sense and I will do a little due diligence and research and very likely do exactly as you suggest here.

I can't really thank you enough, this is much more than I expected.

Thanks for the congrats, it really is a great thing, and ample motivation to get out house in order!

 

[PMM]

Hi

Wow, Computergeek, this is great information. When I showed my wife your posts her exact reaction was "computergeek is amazing!"

Great suggestion regarding the insurance with a high deductible, I hadn't thought of that angle. Also for the recommendation on the insurance company.

The idea of the TRP is really, really interesting. I can see that it is a fine line, but one that seems to be navigable. Thanks very much for putting it in such a logical format and taking the time to outline the entire argument. It makes great sense and I will do a little due diligence and research and very likely do exactly as you suggest here.

I can't really thank you enough, this is much more than I expected.

Thanks for the congrats, it really is a great thing, and ample motivation to get out house in order!

1. I would not put much hope in getting a TRP, stranger things have happened,

 

[pinklady]

When did you apply for the PR?
Have a look at the spreadsheet (the link is below my posts) It shows timelines of people going through the London office. Average is 4-5 months from start to finish. Chances are your wife could be landed in Canada and complete the 3 months wait period for OHIP. Then she would be covered for the birth. You would just have to pay for some pre natal care.
Good luck with everything and feel free to join the outland london thread if you have more questions.
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/thread-for-outland-london-uk-applications-t49436.4560.html

 

[paulonaboat]

Hi Pinklady,

Thanks for the response. It ended up taking another month to get the PR application together. There were compications with the medical (primarily that the doctor in the UK seemed uncertain of the correct form to fill out and what needed to be forwarded to the London visa office). Then by the time we sorted that out (as best we could since with my wife being pregnant theres no x ray) the police clearance had expired and we had to send away for another one of those.

But we got it together and it was recieved at the Missausagu office on Apr 23! We spent a lot of time on it and tried to be really thorough to preclude queries for more information to keep it moving along. So here's hoping!

If you can add us to your spreadsheet that would be greatly appreciated, and i'll start posting in the london outland thread as we mov along. thanks for the help!