Your employees travel for work. Their health plan should not stop at the airport.
Group international medical coverage protects business travelers and employees on long-term assignments, with one administrator and one set of terms, alongside your domestic plan.
A domestic plan is built around a US network. Once employees cross the border, claims get harder to pay, care gets harder to find and the employer gets the call. A group international plan closes that gap for the whole traveling population at once, instead of one traveler at a time.
What is actually true about group international coverage
What Is Actually True
- Short-term business travel and long-term assignments are different needs. A group can cover trips of up to about six months under one arrangement and assignees living abroad under another.
- A domestic plan’s network does not follow the employee, and what it pays abroad varies by carrier, which is why the gaps show up at the worst moment.
- Group international plans can add pharmacy, dental, vision, mental health and wellness support, so assignees are not stitched together from separate policies.
- For expatriates, health can be combined with life and long-term disability coverage in a single arrangement that is easier to administer.
- The line between short-term and long-term is usually drawn at about 180 days, and which side an assignment falls on decides which plan applies, so it is worth settling before the assignment starts.
- Group plans commonly include 24/7 multilingual support, a mobile app, global telemedicine and an administrator portal for adding and removing travelers.
- Medical evacuation is the core assistance service. Many programs also offer political-unrest and natural-disaster evacuation, health and safety alerts and pre-trip planning, which together are what an employer’s duty of care looks like in practice.
- Some programs add real-time security intelligence, traveler tracking and pandemic assistance, which matter most to employers with people in higher-risk locations.
What CFH Does About It
- We map who travels, how long and where, and sort them into short-term and long-term groups.
- We arrange group international medical coverage for each group, alongside your domestic plan.
- We set up the administrator tools so adding and removing travelers is routine, not a project.
- We quote on the actual number of covered lives, and we say plainly when a group plan is not worth it for a handful of travelers.
- We ask what is included, not just what is covered: what triggers an evacuation, who coordinates it, how claims for care abroad are handled and how the administrator portal handles changes.
- We check how the plan fits with workers’ compensation, because an injury on a work trip abroad raises questions a domestic policy was never built to answer.
- We put the pricing and underwriting questions to the market in writing and say plainly what each quote includes and leaves out.
Who a group plan is for
Four groups of people, and what we do for each.
Employees who travel abroad for work on short trips, from a few days to about six months.
What we do about it: We arrange short-term group coverage with telemedicine, and options for leisure or sojourn travel where it matters.
People living abroad for work for months or years, who need care that works where they live.
What we do about it: We arrange long-term group coverage through a global network, with pharmacy, dental, vision and mental health support available.
Assignees often need life and disability coverage along with health.
What we do about it: We arrange a combined health, life and long-term disability package, so it is one solution to administer.
Institutions send students and faculty abroad and welcome international students to the US.
What we do about it: We arrange group coverage for outbound students and faculty and for inbound international students, with global support and evacuation services.
An employer with people abroad is expected to look after them when something goes wrong, from a serious illness to unrest or a natural disaster, and a medical plan alone does not do that.
What we do about it: We confirm what evacuation and assistance services come with the plan, what triggers them and who a traveler calls, and we put the answers in writing before you buy.
Adding and removing travelers, tracking who is covered where, and handling claims in other currencies and languages can become a second job for HR.
What we do about it: We set up the administration so changes are routine, and we ask how claims for care abroad are paid and how long reimbursement takes.
The three things employers ask us first.
Do we need this if employees only travel occasionally?
If your domestic plan does not cover care abroad, one serious claim can cost more than the premium. We look at how often and how far people travel before we recommend a group plan.
Can we cover short trips and long assignments together?
They are usually separate arrangements, because the needs differ. We set up both with one point of contact, so you can manage them without two sets of processes.
What do you need from us to quote it?
Where employees travel, for how long and how many people are covered. The quote is built on the number of covered lives.
What Counts as Short-Term and What Counts as Long-Term?
The dividing line is usually about 180 days. Trips under it are short-term business travel; assignments over it are long-term, and they are priced and administered differently. We sort your travelers before we ask for a quote.
Does Evacuation Come With the Plan?
It varies. Medical evacuation is a core service, and some programs add political-unrest and natural-disaster evacuation. We confirm what is included and what triggers it before you buy.
Who Handles Claims for Care Received Abroad?
The plan’s administrator, typically with multilingual support. We ask how claims are handled and how long reimbursement takes, so employees are not left covering large bills while they wait.
Send us your renewal.
We’ll tell you whether it looks competitive, where we see opportunity, and the five questions we’d put to your carrier. No cost, and no obligation to move anything.
The renewal letter
Your current plan summary
Contribution split by tier
Enrolled counts by tier
Four documents — two more if your group is 50 or more. Nothing else; every extra one is a reason to postpone.
An independent employee benefits consulting firm. We look at the entire benefits program — cost, plan performance, risk and administration.
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