Important Clarifications - EHIC & European Health Insurance

If you’re totally confused about European health insurance and how that relates to the EHIC system, then don’t worry – many are in the same position!

Fortunately, help is at hand below.

What is European health insurance?

To begin with, let’s define the foundation stone here. When you are travelling in the European Union, there is always the possibility that you will either be taken ill or suffer some form of accident - either of which might result in you requiring emergency medical treatment.

In the United Kingdom, you would simply go to your GP, or perhaps your local Accident and Emergency department, and receive treatment that will typically be entirely free of charge. However, that type of system is relatively unusual in most of the rest of the world.

In other countries, including most of those in the European Union, you would need to establish your identity in order to ascertain how much free medical treatment you are entitled to. You would also very probably either pay for components of it or show that you had top-up medical insurance in order to meet those costs not paid for by the state.

As that procedure would apply to citizens of the country itself, it will most certainly usually be applied to visitors from other European Union countries. So, if you are unable to show your entitlement to any form of free treatment, whether you are local or a visitor, you are going to have to dig deep into your pockets to pay for your medical care. Even if you can show such entitlement, you will still have to pay for any parts of it that are not normally provided free of charge.

European Health Insurance is the mechanism by which you provide yourself with a degree of insurance cover against the medical costs incurred should you be unfortunate enough to need treatment in another European Union country.

Two types of insurance protection

For the typical Briton travelling abroad within the EU, there are two separate issues here:

• The EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) and• Private travel or travel and health insurance.

The EHIC is available entirely free of charge from the National Health Service’s own website in the UK. To all intents and purposes, it offers proof to another EU country’s health services provider that you are entitled to the same level of free urgent medical attention as citizens of the country concerned would be.

Note though, this is not the same thing as saying you are entitled to free medical care in totality. For example, if a local citizen would have to pay for a component of their treatment - as might be the case in countries such as a France where only 70% of such costs might be paid for by the French state’s health provision scheme - then the same will apply to you.

A private travel insurance policy offers a much broader-based degree of protection against a range of risks, including those that are not associated with the costs of needing to pay for health care. A policy of this type may meet any ancillary healthcare costs you might incur, even though you were in possession of an EHIC at the time.

One such example might be in situations where your illness or injuries necessitated the provision of medical repatriation services by air or road. Those costs would not be met by an EHIC.

The EHIC and an ancillary European health insurance policy are complementary to each other rather than mutually exclusive. You should not consider that one replaces the other.

P.K. Chong is the Managing Director of All About EHIC. As a major insurance authority, we provide information and top up insurance for those travellers with a European Health Insurance card, known as the EHIC. This top up insurance will cover issues not covered by the EHIC card.