Friends and health cover: you need both in the UAE

Illustration by Gary Clement

A woman is told she has cancer, and in the midst of dealing with the shock of this she is fired from her job in the UAE and her health insurance is taken away. But she decides to stay - her friends are here and she has support. She pays for treatment using her gratuity money.
A friend wants to fly his elderly father-in-law over - it might be the last time he can make the trip because of ill health - and is stumped at difficulty finding, and then the astronomical cost of getting, medical cover while he is in the UAE. A two-week insurance policy is eventually sourced - at the cost of many thousands of dirhams.
Members of my family who are beyond the traditional age for retiring, and planning for their next phase of life without employment frills will soon realise with a jolt how expensive it is to insure their health.
I hear people making plans for trips abroad who are of a certain age or medical predisposition - where they exclude specific countries because their policies don't cover them for treatment there.
Staff at insurance companies tell me of distressing calls from individuals who develop medical conditions while employed on expatriate packages - which included top healthcare policies - only to discover that once they move jobs their policies are cancelled and they are left to figure out how to deal with getting their health covered once again.
Perhaps one of these stories is playing out in your life. Even if none are, it would be prudent of you to find out if you can take your existing health policy with you when you leave your place of employment. And while you're doing that, really look into the detail of what it actually covers.
Does it fit in with how and where you want to live? What happens when you leave the UAE?
It might be worth your while - worth the extra cost - to take out your own policy - one that you own, that stays with you; that covers you where you want to holiday or live next, should you suffer a heart problem, develop cancer, have an accident and need physiotherapy treatment for a few years. The list of possibilities is pretty endless - even if it means you end up with two policies on the go: one you own and one that your employer provides.
But before doing that I would suggest you talk to your employer, negotiate either being able to continue your existing policy when you move jobs or retire, or ask for a cash payment in lieu of them buying your cover and put that money towards your own policy.
To date, every person I talk to who has their health covered through work will not contemplate taking out a "safety net" policy of their own. The reason? It's expensive.
But what price would you put on your health?
This is what a course of radiotherapy costs in the UAE: Dh150,000.
That's not counting immunology injections - at more than Dh3,000 a pop, or chemo.
And what about the worry, the stress, the scramble to sort things out should you have a problem?
The big issue here is that when policies are cancelled, we need to be re-underwritten. What this means is that if you develop a medical condition it will not be covered by your new policy.
There are ways around this situation.
But few people I talk to know about the options. For example, you can join forces with other people - 10 adults seems to be the going figure - and take out a group policy that covers pre-existing conditions. This kind of cover comes at 15 per cent extra for each member of the group if you go through Bupa, for example.
You might think this is OK - that the money you save by not paying for health care, for say a 10 or 20-year period before you go it alone, more than makes up for the increased premiums. But here's another thing to consider: if any one member of your group does not pay up on time, the whole policy can be cancelled - leaving you to scramble again.
The other thing you might want to look at while you sort out your health cover is your friendships.
According to research, good friends are there to help in ways we - and they - don't realise.
Friends lower our blood pressure (even though you might not think it sometimes) and more.
Health will become a major purchase for every one of us as we age. We are living longer. Records are being broken every time new statistics come out. The big issue is not how many years we have, but how many healthy years. So really we should be thinking in terms of "healthy life expectancy".
So the takeaway is: along with sorting out your health cover, invest in your social networks too - it's about empathy as well as companionship. I heard a wonderful story where a woman receiving breast cancer treatment in Al Ain had her 30 appointments on a chart where her friends - some she was close to, others she hardly knew - put their names against the appointment they were committing to take her to. How wonderful.
Nima Abu Wardeh is the founder of the personal finance website www.cashy.me. You can contact her at [e-mail]
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