Health Insurance For Expats In Mexico

The Best Health Insurance For Expatriates Living In Mexico

Posted by Greg Jones on January 24, 2020

If you've searched the web for private medical insurance that covers expats in Mexico then you are probably for looking for trusted UK based health insurance companies that will cover your medical costs in Mexico.

Living as an expat in Mexico you want to avoid any unwanted and unexpected medical costs. In some countries these can amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds for serious conditions.

Our advice when shopping around for private medical insurance that covers expatriates living in Mexico is to speak to a insurance broker. Health insurance is extremely complex and if you want complete certainty that Mexico is covered you should consult with a health insurance broker who can explain which providers will cover medical expenses for expatriates in Mexico and which will not.

There are many advantages to using a insurance broker but the largest by far is that you're using their industry experience at no cost. They are paid by the insurer (Aviva or Bupa etc) rather than by you so it costs you no extra to use their services.

  • Do you live in many different areas? Some will give you a cheaper premium than offers. A insurance broker will be able to advise whats best.
  • Do you have a hobby that may invalidate your insurance policy? A broker will know this vital information.
  • If you are a couple and one of you has claimed on your policy this year would it be cheaper to separate you both onto two different insurance policies?
  • You've developed a certain medical condition and want to know which policy provider offers the biggest amount of cover for it. A broker will know this instantly saving you so much time and effort.

You can call around every health insurance provider on the market and ask if they provider cover for expats in Mexico, however this will be a very time consuming process. Each insurer will ask for your medical history because its not normally a simple yes or not if a medical condition is covered or not.

Its much quicker to speak to one health insurance broker which will know which policy providers on the market offer cover for expats in Mexico and under what conditions they do or don't cover it.

Mexico Information

Tourism in Mexico is a very important industry. Since the 1960s, it has been heavily promoted by the Mexican government, as "an industry without smokestacks." Mexico has traditionally been among the most visited countries in the world according to the World Tourism Organization, and it is the second-most visited country in the Americas, after the United States. In 2017, Mexico was ranked as the sixth-most visited country in the world for tourism activities. Mexico has a significant number of UNESCO World Heritage sites with the list including ancient ruins, colonial cities, and natural reserves, as well as a number of works of modern public and private architecture. Mexico has attracted foreign visitors beginning in the early nineteenth century, cultural festivals, colonial cities, nature reserves and the beach resorts. The nation's temperate climate and unique culture – a fusion of the European and the Mesoamerican are attractive to tourists. The peak tourism seasons in the country are during December and the mid-Summer, with brief surges during the week before Easter and Spring break, when many of the beach resort sites become popular destinations for college students from the United States.

The majority of tourists come to Mexico from the United States and Canada. Other visitors come from other Latin American countries. A small number of tourists also come from Europe and Asia.

Tourism in Mexico developed following the establishment of the Mexican republic, with writings by Alexander von Humboldt, Frannie Calderón de la Barca, the wife of the Spanish Ambassador to Mexico; John Lloyd Stephens, and Edward B. Tylor being important for attracting more travelers. Tourists from the United States began arriving in Mexico in numbers starting in the 1880s, following construction of direct railway lines in Mexico to the U.S. border. General Porfirio Díaz became president of Mexico by coup in 1876, the beginning of a long period of peace in Mexico following decades of civil war. With the inauguration of direct Pullman service from the U.S. to Mexico in 1884, tourists no longer endured difficult and dangerous travel. The Mexican Central Railway actively promoted tourism in the United States, hiring a professional photographer, William Henry Jackson, to visually record the route and a professional writer, James W. Steel, to write promotional copy. Guides for English-speaking tourists were also published, most notably Terry's Guide to Mexico, which went through several editions at the beginning of the twentieth century. Mexico appealed to American tourists seeking an "exotic" holiday. It was promoted in 1890 as the "Egypt of the New World." With the 1910 centennial of Mexican independence, the government undertook an excavation and reconstruction of the Pyramid of the Sun at the huge archeological site of Teotihuacan, near Mexico City. A railway line was constructed from the capital to the site, bringing scholars from the 1910 meeting of the International Congress of Americanists. In addition, the National Museum of Anthropology was refurbished in advance of the celebrations, in anticipation of tourists. Mexico was a beneficiary of the increasing tourism of Europeans and Americans to distant lands. In Mexico, many tourists brought home real or fake relics, and often left graffiti.

The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) interrupted tourism in Mexico, but by the 1930s, the Mexican government began promoting tourism again with posters of light-skinned young women and lush gardens. In the 1920s and 30s, there was an "enormous vogue of things Mexico" in the United States, resulting in cultural exchanges, temporary and permanent art exhibitions, and patronage of Mexican artists, such as muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Starting with the administration of Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28), the Mexican government became involved in promoting tourism in Mexico, eventually becoming a cabinet position, the Ministry of Tourism in 1975.

During the Jazz Age and the era of Prohibition of alcohol in the U.S., border towns in Mexico, particularly Tijuana became destinations for vice tourism. The song "South of the Border (down Mexico way)" song by Frank Sinatra helped promote the region. It was known for casino gambling, glitzy floor shows, horse- and dog-racing, and other hedonistic pursuits. Chicago gangster Al Capone frequented the Agua Caliente resort, as did big names from Hollywood. "Mafia chic and Hollywood star power fueled the Tijuana mystique and imbued it with ersatz glamour." When Lázaro Cárdenas became president of Mexico, 1934–40, he cracked down on casino gambling in northern Mexico, since it was a source of money and power for Cárdenas's political rivals, former presidents Plutarco Elías Calles and Abelardo L. Rodríguez.

When Cárdenas was governor of his home state of Michoacan (1928–32)and later, when he was president of Mexico (1934–40) and beyond, he promoted tourism to Michoacan and particularly to the historic town of Pátzcuaro. He commissioned murals to show the importance of the region's history to the history of Mexico, promoted indigenous performance in music and dance, and actively had Michoacan advertised as a tourist destination.