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The fee you pay for your health insurance policy is called a premium. In exchange you get cover for private healthcare according to the terms and conditions of your policy. It is essential to understand how your insurance company calculates the premium for your international health insurance.
Oliver Anderson
Technical Pricing Manager
The information on this page refers to health insurance policies starting in 2025. If you live in Hong Kong, please check out our information on how we calculate premiums in Hong Kong.
If you live in the UAE, please check out our information on how we calculate premiums in the UAE.
If you’re already a member, please check out our information on how we calculate your renewal premium.
The premium is what you are charged for your health insurance policy.
You may also need to pay taxes and service fees on top of your premium, depending on where you live and from which insurance company you’ve purchased a policy.
Insurers do not usually include charges like taxes and services in the premium. Annoyingly, tax can be as high as 20% in some countries, so make sure you check first to avoid surprises.
At William Russell, we do not charge a service fee. But you may still have to pay insurance premium tax or value added tax (VAT) if you’re living in the UK or a country in the European Union. We’ll always let you know what taxes you must pay before you part with any cash.
There are four factors that affect the premium for your health insurance policy.
We have four health plans (Bronze, SilverLite, Silver, and Gold). Each has a different price. You can also customise your plan with excesses and optional benefits. These customisations also affect your premium.
You’re more likely to need healthcare the older you get. This means premiums get more expensive as you get older.
Health insurance premiums are higher in countries where private healthcare is more expensive. So, how do we know which countries are the costliest?
For over 30 years, we’ve worked closely with private hospitals and clinics in pretty much every country on the planet. We know the doctors and specialists, we know how they like to work, and we know how much they charge for different medical treatments.
When we compare these charges to global averages, we can paint a picture of which cities, countries, and regions are more expensive and which are cheaper. We group countries into categories based on how expensive private healthcare is there. At our last count, we had more than 100 categories. It sounds complex, but it’s great for our members.
If you’re living in Malaysia, we don’t want you to pay too much for your health insurance just because private healthcare happens to be expensive in neighbouring Singapore. Sometimes, the cost of private healthcare in a neighbouring country affects the premium you pay. For example, people living in Indonesia typically travel to Singapore or Thailand for elective hospital treatment. This practice increases the premium we charge for Indonesia.
Things do change. The cost of private healthcare in a certain country can change very quickly. Medical treatment in Hong Kong, Singapore, and some cities in Thailand is now almost as expensive as similar treatment in Switzerland and the USA. That simply wasn’t the case when we started in the 1990s.
Health insurance doesn’t typically cover you for pre-existing medical conditions. Sometimes, you may need to pay an additional premium to get cover for such conditions.
Knowing what doesn’t affect your premium for health insurance can help put your mind to rest.
When you apply for health insurance, we don’t check your credit score and it won’t affect your premium.
Your nationality does not affect the premium you pay.
Some businesses alter the prices you see for a product depending on the time of day, how many times you’ve visited their website, and how many other people are looking at that product. We don’t do this. Our prices are fixed for each calendar year.
There are a few things you can do to help reduce your premium:
We’re a small insurance provider relative to the global insurance conglomerates. This means we can provide a much more personal level of service, which means you don’t get passed around a call centre when you telephone us – you deal with a dedicated account manager if you have to claim with us.
Because of this, it’s in our interests to keep your premium increases low. We work closely with our insurer Allianz to make sure you don’t have a nasty shock when you receive your renewal invitation each year.
Unlike other providers, your claims history while you’re a member with William Russell won’t affect your renewal premium. We don’t think it’s fair to penalise members based on legitimate claims they’ve made in the past. Furthermore, it discourages people from receiving the medical treatment they need because they are concerned about the cost of their renewal premium.
We want to provide you with an insurance policy you can rely on, so it is important that you fully understand the scope of the cover we provide. Answers to the most common questions about insurance premiums are here, but feel free to get in touch and speak to our award-winning team. We’d be glad to help.
You can pay your premium in annual, monthly, quarterly, or semi-annual instalments. When you apply for a health insurance policy, we set out your payment schedule, and your cover starts as soon as you make the first payment due.
Insurance companies use these terms interchangeably, but there’s no real difference. We use ‘premium’, but they both mean the price you pay for coverage under an insurance policy.
We don’t offer members a no-claim discount because we think that such discounts are unfair.
This might seem counterintuitive. Surely, we should reward you if you pay your premium but don’t make claims?
Well, we’ve found that no-claim discounts encourage members to not to make claims to protect their no-claim record.
While this might be fine for a year or two, over time members can come to depend on a significant discount that would disappear overnight should they make a claim. It can also discourage members from seeking and receiving necessary medical treatment, which makes things much worse for the member over the long run.
We prefer to focus on low premium increases year-on-year, and not considering the claims you make when we calculate your renewal premium. This approach means you can seek and receive the treatment you need without worrying about us penalising you when your policy renews.
At William Russell, we have over 30 years’ experience of helping expatriates move abroad and settle into their new lives overseas by providing world-class international health insurance.
Joe Holden Global Relationship Manager
If you’re ready to see prices for health insurance, click on ‘Get a Quote’ below to head on over to our online quote tool.
We’ll ask you a few details (your age, your location), and then we’ll show you prices—it only takes a few minutes!
A couple of days after you’ve received you quote, Joe will email or call you to find out how we can help you further. Joe won’t bug you, and you can opt out at any time.
It’s filled with handy information and tips for expats.
We were one of the first insurance providers to cover people living abroad, and we’ve earned a reputation for our wonderful customer service.
The insurer behind our policies is part of the Allianz group
We’re proud of our award-winning service and our members rate it highly
You will get your own dedicated adviser when you join
If you’re not happy with your health insurance policy or the service we provide, and you haven’t yet made a claim, then we’ll refund the premium you’ve paid—no questions asked.
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