Insurance for aged parents visiting Canada

[Tapak]

Hi,

Thanks for reading my post.

My parents (73 yrs and 68 yrs) from India are visiting us in Canada this summer for less than 2 months. They have regular visitors visa (NOT a SuperVisa). They don't have any prevailing medical conditions but things can happen in old age so I don't want to take any risk.
I am looking for insurance service providers with cashless transaction - direct pay to doctors/hospitals. Indian Insurance companies are ruled out as they don't have sufficient coverage (need atleast 100K) with cashless transaction. So far, I checked for insurance quotes online and it seems that gms.ca has the best coverage for a premium. I would like to know if there are other better options based on your experience.

TIA,
Tapak

 

[Petermiyuki]

Hi.

Have you found the right plan?
Some insurer offer direct billing;Policy holder doesn't have to pay the bill if s/he goes to the hospital named by insurer. It's convenient and saves time of policy holder, but make sure the plan doesn't have any penalty clause on visiting hospital out of the network.

Choosing insurance plan w/o direct billing function doesn't always mean you have to pay every time and make a claim.
1) In most plans(w/o direct billing service), you'll be required to call insurer in case of emergency anyway. As bills for emergency services are expensive, insurer will arrange a direct billing.
2) Policy holder can call the insurer and ask if there's any hospital/clinic where direct billing available.
3) Sometimes, hospital/clinic recognize the insurer and they directly charge insurer(policy holder doesn't have to pay).

If you'd like to know further, please contact:info@biis.ca This broker carries a few visitor plans.
Cheers!

 

[goldenbrown]

As for the cashless transactions each company has its own network of hospitals that they work with. You can call a few to ask about particular details based on whose services you'd like to use. Most likely if it's a major hospital the insurance company would be able to pay directly. In case the claim amount is small or you go to a walk in clinic you might have to pay yourself first and then get reimbursed after.

There's a couple of plans that you can take a look at that have comparative pricing and benefits with GMS. GMS has recently increased their premiums so they are not the best value option in some cases anymore.

You can take a look here - just enter the parents' age and scroll down to see what's available:

https://arbetovinsurance.com/visitorstocanada/

In the Blog section you can also read an article about common claims myths.

Cheers!