Foreigners in Italy will Have to Pay for Access To State Healthcare From 2024

In this iPMI Global Insights article, iPMI report author Ian Youngman, takes a look at news out of Italy, which means expatriates may need iPMI. 60,000 British expats currently reside in Italy.

Ian Youngman is a writer and researcher specialising in insurance. He writes regularly for a variety of magazines, newsletters, and on-line services. He publishes a range of market reports, and undertakes research for companies. To read his latest report, International Health Insurance 2023, please click here, or visit the REPORTS section of iPMI Global.

• From 2024 foreigners who live in Italy will be able to use the national health service only after paying a 2800 euro annual fee.
• The charge, part of the 2024 budgetadopted by the cabinet, will apply only to citizens from outside the European Union.
• Other foreigners with legal residency, such as au pairs, diplomats and students, can join the Italian health service voluntarily, for a variable fee.
• Foreign workers, job seekers, asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors currently have access to free healthcare, as do all Italian nationals.
• Italian nationals will get free access.
• For students the charge is capped around 150 euros per year, while for others it depends on their annual income and can go up to t 2,800 euros.

Analysis

• This should lead to an increase in demand for IPMI.
• The latest official number on expats of 5.17 million is from 2021.
• Despite being a popular destination for expats, Italy ranks as one of the worst countries for getting started abroad as it is difficult to deal with the local bureaucracy.
• Italy also ranks low for the ease of opening a local bank account and obtaining a visa.
• The irony of the attraction of moving to a slower paced Italy but getting annoyed with slowness does not seem to occur to many expats.
• Seemingly the noisiest critics are the British, who struggle to understand that after voting for Brexit they are no longer EU citizens so have to comply with more rules than previously.
• There are few global insurers and brokers offering IPMI here.

What Next?

• There are 60,000 British expats who may need IPMI.
• The same applies to other non-EU nationals.

The latest information, facts and figures on iPMI: International Health Insurance 2023

• International Private Medical Insurance (IPMI) is a key global health insurance product for many insurance companies, brokers and MGAs.
• It is a dynamic market that is seeing major new partnerships, selling and buying of insurers or business books, technological changes and much more.
• New compulsory health insurance and universal health insurance affects demand in a positive as well as negative way.
• Brokers and insurers expect strong growth in 2023 and future years.
• Employers are shifting from traditional expat models to decentralised models that incorporate more virtual assignments and in-market hiring. 
• There are more short-term and flexible assignments but the number of long-term assignments is at pre-2020 levels.
• IPMI has new markets of HNW, digital nomads, temporary foreign workers, cross-border workers, local employees, contract workers plus international students.
• The publisher has been researching and studying the IPMI market for 30 years.
• His market reports are based on a daily updated database of 177 countries-83 insurance companies-47 insurance brokers, agents and MGAs/MGUs.
• The main IPMI is report is 300 pages and as well as the latest information this edition studies the many insurer-insurer IPMI partnerships that are changing the global market.

To purchase this report, or any others, simply write to ipmi[at]ipmimagazine.com

The 2023 edition includes:

• 300 page main report.
• 177 country profiles.
• 83 insurance companies.
• 47 insurance brokers, agents, MGAs and others.

To read his latest report, International Health Insurance 2023, please click here, or visit the REPORTS section of iPMI Global.