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New Mandatory Travel Insurance for Tourists in Thailand

Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are talking about Insurance in the context of Tourists here in the Kingdom of Thailand. 

There have been some recent announcements that have made some waves here and we want to go ahead and discuss some of them. Coming from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the title of the article: Compulsory Insurance for Tourists Eyed. Quoting directly: "Compulsory Travel Insurance for Foreign Visitors at a Baht 20 Premium each is expected to debut this year according to the Office of the Insurance Commission. Foreign Travelers will be required to pay for the Compulsory Insurance at Immigration Offices and airports while the premium will be directed to Thailand's tourism promotion fund for coverage of payments in the event of claims, said Secretary General Suthipon Thaveechaigarn. The Compulsory Travel Insurance will offer up to 1 million Baht of coverage in cases of death with a maximum duration of 30 days." That is kind of important. I will get to that in just a moment. "The insurance will have to seek approval from the Tourism and Sports Ministry before being forwarded to the Cabinet later." 

So the thing to first of all take away from this video is, this is yet to be fully enacted so this is going before the Cabinet. Another thing that I thought was interesting is those who have followed this channel may be aware that we have discussed this before.  If you go back to around the first of 2019, late 2018, I did videos discussing a proposed Thai Tourist Visa Insurance scheme and this is a little different. Let me re-read something here. "The Compulsory Travel Insurance will offer up to 1 million Baht of coverage in cases of death with a maximum duration of 30 days."  That is important because unlike Tourist Visa Insurance proper, this is more for lack of better term, it is sort of like indemnifying Thailand against foreigners who enter the country on 30-day stamps, which if you recall from prior videos on this channel, a 30-day visa exemption stamp is slightly different than a Visa proper. A 30-day Visa exemption stamp is issued for 30 days only although it can be extended by another 30 days.  A tourist visa is generally issued, if it is a single-entry tourist visa, it is generally issued for and initial 60-day duration with a 30-day extension possible. Multiple-entry tourist visas are issued in 6 months increments. So we are not talking, in this particular context, about tourist visas per se. It appears that Thailand is looking to again for lack of better term, be indemnified against people who enter the country on 30 days stamps and then something befalls them and the Thai Medical System has to go ahead and take care of those folks. So this appears to be specifically targeted, at least from my reading of this, and again the title of this:  Compulsory Insurance for Tourists Eyed, bangkokpost.com.  I urge those watching this video go read that article. It is far longer than what I have quoted here. I just wanted to tease out the point that this is about 30 day stamps it appears to me. Tourist Visa Insurance proper, which we have discussed in other videos, that is already out there.  We are dealing with that as this video is being made; that is on the books, for lack of a better term. That being stated, this 30-day visa scheme, all this 30-day exemption scheme, with this 20 baht premium, that is a different matter. That appears to be specifically targeting those who are coming to Thailand on a 30-day stamp and presumably I would think once this is finally rolled out and we see the finer points of the regulations, I am sure that the 30-day extension on a 30-day exemption will probably require an additional 20 premium to be paid associated with insurance for that person while they are here in the Kingdom.

We will keep you updated on this but it is insightful to note that not only have they now,  as we have discussed in other videos, they are coming looking at retirees and longer staying folks, then they went ahead and we are dealing with tourists. Now they are even down to scrutinizing those who are coming into the Kingdom in 30 days status which is quite a different set of circumstances we  were dealing with 6 months, 8 months ago. So we will keep you updated as things progress on this channel, so stay tuned.