If you've searched the internet for health insurance that covers expats in Tonga then you are probably for looking for trusted UK based health insurance providers that can cover your medical costs in Tonga.
Living as an expatriate in Tonga you want to avoid any unwanted and unexpected health care costs. In some countries these can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds for serious conditions.
Our advice when looking for private medical insurance that covers expatriates living in Tonga is to speak to a health insurance broker. Health insurance is incredibly complicated and if you want complete certainty that Tonga is covered you should consult with a medical insurance broker who can explain which policy providers will cover medical costs for expatriates in Tonga and which will exclude it.
There are many advantages to using a broker but the biggest by far is that you're using their insurance training at no cost. They are paid by the insurer (Aviva or Bupa etc) rather than you so it costs you no extra to use their services.
- Do you live in many different postcodes? 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 critical information.
- If you are a couple and one of you has claimed on your insurance 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 insurer offers the largest 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 you can find and ask if they provider cover for expats in Tonga, 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 medical insurance broker which will know which policy providers on the market offer cover for expats in Tonga and under what conditions they do or don't cover it.
Tonga Information
Tonga (/ˈtɒŋ(ɡ)ə/, Tongan: [ˈtoŋa]), officially named the Kingdom of Tonga (Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country, and also an archipelago comprising 169 islands, of which 36 are inhabited. The archipelago's total surface area is about 750 square kilometres (290 sq mi) scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of the southern Pacific Ocean. As of 2016, Tonga had a population of 100,651, 70% of whom resided on the main island, Tongatapu.
Tonga stretches across approximately 800 kilometres (500 mi) in a north–south line. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest; Samoa to the northeast; New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the west; Niue (the nearest foreign territory) to the east; and Kermadec (New Zealand) to the southwest. Tonga is about 1,800 kilometres (1,100 mi) from New Zealand's North Island.
From 1900 to 1970, Tonga had British protected-state status. The United Kingdom looked after Tonga's foreign affairs under a Treaty of Friendship, but Tonga never relinquished its sovereignty to any foreign power. In 2010, Tonga took a decisive step away from its traditional absolute monarchy and towards becoming a fully functioning constitutional monarchy, after legislative reforms paved the way for its first partial representative elections.
In many Polynesian languages, including Tongan, the word tonga comes from fakatonga, which means "southwards", and the archipelago is so named because it is the southernmost group among the island groups of central Polynesia. The word tonga is cognate to the Hawaiian word “kona,” meaning “leeward,” which is the origin of the name for the Kona District in Hawai’i.
Tonga became known in the West as the "Friendly Islands" because of the congenial reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773. He arrived at the time of the annual ʻinasi festival, which centres on the donation of the First Fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga (the islands' monarch), and so he received an invitation to the festivities. Ironically, according to the writer William Mariner, the political leaders actually wanted to kill Cook during the gathering, but didn't go through with it because they couldn't agree on a plan of action for accomplishing it.
An Austronesian-speaking group linked to what archaeologists call the Lapita cultural complex reached and inhabited Tonga sometime between 1500 and 1000 BC. Scholars still debate exactly when Tonga was first settled, but thorium dating confirms that settlers had arrived in the earliest known inhabited town, Nukuleka, by 888 BC, ± 8 years. Tonga's pre-contact history was shared via oral history, which was passed down from generation to generation.
By the 12th century, Tongans and the Tongan monarch, the Tuʻi Tonga, had acquired a reputation across the central Pacific—from Niue, Samoa, Rotuma, Wallis & Futuna, New Caledonia to Tikopia—leading some historians to speak of there having been a Tuʻi Tonga Empire during that period. There are also known to have been civil wars in Tonga in the 15th and 17th centuries.
The Tongan people first encountered Europeans in 1616, when the Dutch vessel Eendracht, captained by Willem Schouten, made a short visit to the islands for the purpose of engaging in trade. Later, other Dutch explorers arrived, including Jacob Le Maire (who visited the northern island of Niuatoputapu); and Abel Tasman (who visited Tongatapu and Haʻapai) in 1643. Later noteworthy European visitors included James Cook, of the British Royal Navy, in 1773, 1774, and 1777; Spanish Navy explorers Francisco Mourelle de la Rúa in 1781; Alessandro Malaspina in 1793; the first London missionaries in 1797; and the Wesleyan Methodist minister, Reverend Walter Lawry, in 1822.
Whaling vessels were among the earliest regular Western visitors. The first of these on record is the Ann & Hope, which was reported to have been seen among the islands of Tonga in June 1799. The last known whaling visitor was the Albatross in 1899. That ship arrived in Tonga seeking a re-supply of water, food and wood. The islands most regularly visited by Westerners were Ata, 'Eua, Ha'apai, Tongatapu and Vava'u. Sometimes Tongan men were recruited to serve as crewmen on these vessels.
In 1845, an ambitious young Tongan warrior, strategist, and orator named Tāufaʻāhau united Tonga into a kingdom. He held the chiefly title of Tuʻi Kanokupolu, but had been baptised by Methodist missionaries with the name Siaosi ("George") in 1831. In 1875, with the help of missionary Shirley Waldemar Baker, he declared Tonga a constitutional monarchy; formally adopted the Western royal style; emancipated the "serfs"; enshrined a code of law, land tenure, and freedom of the press; and limited the power of the chiefs.