Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Insurance in the context of Retirement Visas here in Thailand. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Tourists 'must be insured' before entering. Quoting directly: "Thailand is pushing for regulations that would require international tourists to obtain Accident Insurance before entering the country as rising unpaid medical bills and accident risks place a mounting strain on public health care. At Vachira Phuket Hospital, the financial burden is already apparent. Dr. Weerasak Lorthongkham, the Director of the Hospital which serves 400,000 registered residents and more than 1 million visitors, said the facility absorbs high unpaid costs each year. "Each yeah, we absorb about 10 million Baht in treatment costs for foreign patients without insurance," he said. 

I discussed this as it pertains to tourists in another video I made contemporaneously this one. I urge those who are checking out this channel, go to the search function or actually it has come out within about three videos of this by the time I expect this video will come online. But that said, that pertained to Insurance in the context of tourists. My thinking on that is that we will probably see something akin to what has been described in the past as a Tourist Tax being placed on folks who are looking to travel into Thailand. But I'm making this video in order to discuss issues associated with - (excuse me, for some reason I had a hair in my mouth) - Retirement Visas here in Thailand and insurance associated therewith. I've done a number of videos on this in the past, so if you go through our video library here on the channel, on YouTube, you can just look up insurance and retirement, and you will probably get a host of videos. You can also go over to legal.co.th, our main website where we have the resources section where I have transcripts of all these videos on an ongoing basis maintained there in sort of an archival format. You can basically search Retirement, Insurance and it will come up with a number of different videos over there. 

While I'm sort of plugging at the moment, it’s probably fair to point out that my better half and I set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok, Pancake Palace. As the name implies it is breakfast anytime, American style diner food; it's not just breakfast. We have hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chilli bowls, buffalo wings, grilled cheese sandwiches. We have now got tacos, coca cola in glass bottles, so if you're interested, links are in the description below; you can come on down and check us out at Pancake Palace, we would love to see you there. 

But circling back to what we are talking about here which is Insurance in the context of Retirement Visas, there is a difference between the standard O Retirement Visa and the O-A Visa which is for retirees: one is issued in-country although the O Retirement Visa on a 90-day basis can be issued through an Embassy or Consulate outside of Thailand. In the past it was much easier to convert into O status here in the Kingdom. These days that is becoming a lot more difficult than it once was; I have discussed that at length in other videos. There are some out there who say it's impossible to convert into an O Retirement Visa. Well as with many things in the immigration context, depending on underlying circumstances, it may be possible. In short, nothing is necessarily impossible per se with regard to immigration, albeit there are some things that are more improbable than others. 

That said, the point being made here is there is a difference between the O-A Retirement Visa which does have an insurance requirement, which goes back to round about 2016 and '17 when we first started seeing that insurance requirement being placed on Retirement Visas which was quite controversial at the time; I remember doing a number of videos about it. But long story short, that is for the O-A, and for people that are continuing to extend their status in O-A status. For those who are in O status, insurance is not required. 

So again, for certain types of retirees it may be more of a benefit to be utilizing the standard O Retirement Visa as opposed to the O-A. Now that said, rules can change and it's not impossible that we could see different requirements regarding Insurance in the future, so we will certainly be keeping folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.