Your European Health Insurance Card

When planning a holiday abroad, travel insurance is a major consideration. The internet can be the best place to find the cheapest travel insurance products, especially if you check prices on an online comparison website. But if you are travelling within Europe, then you can lower the costs of travel insurance even further by obtaining a European Health Insurance Card, or EHIC.

If you travel to any EEA or European Economic Area countries or Switzerland, then a European Health Insurance Card will enable you to claim free or subsidised medical costs while abroad. You may well have had to use an E111 form for this purpose in the past, but these E111 forms have now been replaced by EHICs.

Before you apply for an EHIC, you should check to see whether or not you are eligible for a card. Those who are older than 16 years of age and who reside within the UK can apply for a card, and the best thing is that they are completely free.

Your EHIC will enable you to be treated as an insured national would be treated in your destination country. However, any treatment you receive must be state-provided treatment, and not private, otherwise your EHIC will not cover you.

Should a relative need to stay with you while you are ill, your EHIC will not cover the costs of their accommodation either. And not all treatment costs will be covered by an EHIC, so it is still highly recommended that you obtain separate travel insurance cover too.

Your EHIC is used as a means of reclaiming medical costs incurred while abroad from the National Health Service in the UK. It is for this reason that only state-provided medical treatments will be covered.

Your European Health Insurance card is valid in a range of countries. It can be used anywhere within the EEA, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland. The EEA is made up Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway and all of the European Union countries too.

Your EHIC is completely free and can obtained by calling 0845 606 2030, or by filling out an application on the Department of Health or EHIC website, or at any UK post office. Just remember that each member of your travelling party needs to apply for their own separate card.

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