2011 Health Insurance report
In this article, we set out to get some information regarding Turkish insurance companies offering health insurance.
The questions:
Each of the 26 insurance companies were asked the following questions (in English) via email. They were also asked to provide a quote for a fictional couple aged in their 50's.
- Can you provide full English language translations of your policies?
- Do you have an English language helpline?
- Do you have an age limit?
- Do you cover pre-existing health conditions?
- Do your policies cover "Dangerous sports"?
Initial Email
We first sent an identical email (or web enquiry), to each of the companies. We simply asked if they could answer some simple questions about their policies. All emails sent were anonymously with no mention of the Bodrum Bulletin.
Of the 26 companies;
- TEN companies did not reply after 10 days
- SIXTEEN companies responded and asked for more information
Follow-up
Next, for those 16 companies that responded to our initial question, we asked them the following questions:
- Can you provide full English language translations of your policies?
- Do you have an English language helpline?
- Do you have an age limit?
- Do you cover pre-existing health conditions?
- Do your policies cover "Dangerous sports"?
Of the 16 companies;
- EIGHT provided satisfactory responses to the questions asked
- FOUR companies provided partial responses, or were not able to provide cover to non-Turkish citizens
- FOUR companies did not reply with answers
Quotations
For the 12 companies that responded, we then asked them to quote for a fictional married couple aged 55, living in Bodrum all year around, and who had no pre-existing conditions.
- TEN companies responded with quotes
- TWO companies did not respond with quotes
Prices
Of course, every policy is different, and great care should be taken when comparing policies, but we did note the following:
- All policies provided unlimited In-Patient care
- Most policies providing Out-Patient care required a 20% contribution of the fee from the policy holder
- The cheapest "limited" Out-Patient policy was a total of 2,600TL for one year
- The cheapest "unlimited" Out-Patient policy was a total of 5,100TL for one year
- No policies provided mental health cover
- Although all companies have age-limits (e.g. 60), these limits only apply to the first policy - i.e. if you apply when you are 55, the company will honour your renewals past the advertised limit.
Summary and Ratings
We then analysed the results, and rated both the prices received, and the email communication on scale from 1 to 5. We combined this with the answers to produce the table below for an comparison of the different companies:
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