Life & family protection

Living abroad complicates three things that were simple at home: which policy pays out where, how a beneficiary in another country actually receives the money, and whether a policy bought before you moved still covers you now that you live in Thailand.

That last one catches people out. Some home-country policies restrict or void cover once you are resident overseas beyond a certain period, and almost nobody rereads their policy after moving. It is worth ten minutes checking yours — we will read it with you, whether or not you buy anything from us.

A Thai life policy is straightforward on all three counts: it is written for a resident of Thailand, it names beneficiaries directly, and the benefit is paid without passing through a probate process, which matters enormously when your family is in another country and another timezone.

It is also the contract your health and critical illness cover attaches to, because Thai regulation does not allow standalone medical policies. That makes it the foundation of the plan rather than an afterthought, and it is why the life policy you choose determines what you can build on top of it later.

On how much cover: the method we use is DIME — total your Debts, the Income your dependants would need for a set number of years, any Mortgage outstanding, and Education costs to completion. Subtract savings and any employer benefit. What remains is roughly the sum to insure.

For expats there are two lines people habitually forget. The first is repatriation, which is expensive and falls due immediately. The second is that a surviving partner may need to stop working, or return home, at exactly the moment household income has halved.

Cover splits broadly into two kinds: term, which buys the most protection per baht for a fixed number of years but returns nothing, and permanent cover, which costs more but accumulates value and lasts for life. Neither is better in the abstract. Which one fits depends on whether you are protecting a temporary obligation or building something lasting.