expat insurance
Expat Insurance is cover built for people living and working outside their home country, protecting their health, belongings and travel while abroad.
In plain English
The first time your correspondent's cousin landed in Lagos from London to resettle for a two year work contract, the airport clinic asked a question nobody had prepared him for. Which insurance card was he carrying, and would it work in Nigeria at all.
His UK workplace health cover had calmly ended the moment he left British soil, and his Nigerian relatives assumed the NHS habit would somehow follow him home. It does not work that way. Once you cross borders to live and work somewhere new, most home country cover simply stops applying, and that gap is exactly what expat insurance exists to close.
Expat insurance is a package built for people who live outside their home country for a stretch of time, whether that is a Nigerian engineer posted to Qatar, a Briton relocating to Lagos for a bank role, or a Nigerian family settling in Toronto. It usually bundles health cover, sometimes evacuation cover if you need to be flown somewhere for treatment, and often protection for your belongings and travel in between.
It differs from ordinary travel insurance, which covers a short trip, and from your home country's health scheme, which was never designed to follow you abroad. Expat cover is meant for the long stay, the rented flat in a new city, the school run in a language you are still learning, the reality that if you fall ill far from home, someone still needs to pay the bill and get you the right care.
A good policy will spell out clearly whether maternity, dental, chronic conditions and medical evacuation are included, because these are the things people assume are covered until the day they need them and find otherwise.
Adaeze moves from Lagos to Dubai for a three year contract. Her employer offers a basic local health plan, but she tops it up with an expat policy costing about ₦850,000 a year, which adds medical evacuation and covers her if she needs treatment back in Nigeria during a visit home.
Questions people ask
Do I still need expat insurance if my new employer offers health cover?
Often yes, because employer cover abroad can be basic, may exclude dependants, or may not include evacuation if you need treatment elsewhere. Read the fine print before assuming you are fully protected.
Does expat insurance cover me when I travel back to Nigeria to visit family?
Many policies do include cover for visits home within a set number of days each year, but this varies a lot between insurers, so confirm it in writing before you travel.
Is expat insurance the same as travel insurance?
No. Travel insurance suits a short trip of days or weeks, while expat insurance is built for people relocating for months or years, with broader health and sometimes property cover included.
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