About Expat Health Guide: who we are and how we work

Updated October 28, 2026

Expat Health Guide is an English-language guide for people from the US and the UK who are retiring or living abroad, especially those aged 50 to 64. We cover retirement visas, healthcare systems, living costs and long-term health insurance. This page explains who stands behind the site, where our figures come from, how we check them, how we make money and how you can tell us when something is wrong.

Who is behind this site?

The site is published by ChiliMarketing Ltd., Petko Karavelov 46, 1408 Sofia, Bulgaria (company register: Sofia, Bulgaria; registration number 200982714; VAT ID BG200982714). The managing director and the person responsible for content is S. Ivanov. All legal details are in our imprint & disclaimer.

The guides are written by Steffan Grund, Insurance specialist (Versicherungsfachmann BWV), with 15 years in health insurance for people living abroad. His focus areas are:

• International health insurance for expats
• Health-insurance requirements for long-stay and retirement visas
• Retiring abroad
• Long-term stays in Southeast Asia, Southern Europe and Latin America

We are a small publisher. We do not list a team of editors we do not have, and we do not show awards, user numbers or testimonials. What we can show is our method, described below, and the named sources on every page.

Where do the figures on this site come from?

Every figure on a content page comes from a facts sheet that we build for that page from official sources before the page is written. Each facts sheet records the number, the body that publishes it, the date we read it and any conflict with other sources. Our preferred sources are:

• governments and their immigration and visa portals
• embassies and consulates
• national statistics offices and central banks
• regulators, for example utility and insurance regulators
• GOV.UK country guidance (“Living in …”) and the US State Department

The sources are named on each page in a plain-text list headed “Where these facts come from”, with the publishing body and the date. If a figure cannot be found in a source we trust, we do not guess it: it is either left out or marked as not found.

When official sources disagree

Official sources sometimes contradict each other. A consulate in one country may state a different income threshold, fee or document list from the foreign ministry’s main page, or two pages may give different validity periods. When that happens, we show both versions and say which body says what. We do not quietly pick the more convenient number.

Price indexes and our own budget models

For everyday living costs there is often no official figure. Only then do we use third-party price indexes such as Numbeo or livingcost.org, and we label them by name and with the month we retrieved them. We treat them as ranges, never as official data.

Some pages contain budget models, for example a monthly budget for a single retiree or a couple. These are our own calculations from the sourced figures, and they are labelled as ours so you can tell them apart from official numbers.

Why we do not link to other websites

This site has no external links, on purpose. Official pages move, change address or disappear, and a link can look like an endorsement of whatever sits behind it. Instead we name each source in plain text, so you can search for it on the official site and read the current version yourself. The only links that leave the site are the referral links to the insurer’s application pages, explained below.

How is each page checked before it goes live?

Every new page is checked a second time against its facts file before publication, plus automatic checks on every build. That second check looks for three things:

1. Facts: does each figure match the facts sheet and the named source?
2. Consistency between pages: does the page agree with what our other pages say about the same visa, country or plan?
3. Unsupported claims: does the page promise anything the sources do not support, for example that a policy is accepted for a visa?

Insurance premiums are not typed into pages by hand. They come from one central price table taken from the insurer’s official premium table, so the same price appears everywhere on the site.

Our update policy

Each page shows one visible “Updated” date. It is the date of the last substantive change, such as a new figure, a corrected statement or a changed rule. We do not move the date forward for spelling fixes or design changes, so the date tells you how current the content really is.

How does this site make money?

Some links on this site are referral links to Care Expat World, a long-term international health insurance plan from Barmenia, arranged by Care Concept AG (Bonn, Germany). If you take out a policy through one of these links, we may earn a small commission. It costs you nothing extra and does not change the price: the premium is the same as if you went to the insurer directly. We are not an insurer and not an insurance broker; the contract is concluded only between you and the insurer.

Because we earn from this plan, we make a point of explaining its limits openly on every page where it appears:

• Age: your cover must start by 1 December of the year you turn 64. If you are already 65 or older in the year cover would start, the plan is closed to you.
• No home cover for non-EU citizens: cover in your home country exists only if that country is an EU or Schengen state. Citizens of the USA, the UK and other non-EU countries are not covered on visits home.
• Zones: the prices we show are for Zone 1 (worldwide except the USA, China and Singapore). Cover that includes China and Singapore, or the USA, costs more.
• Visas: we never claim that a consulate accepts this plan for a visa, and the plan starts on the 1st of a month and never before you cross the border.

Our full disclaimer, which also appears at the bottom of every page, reads:

This page is general information only — not legal, tax, or insurance advice, and no substitute for individual advice. Tariffs, prices, and requirements can change and are provided without guarantee; always rely on the insurer’s current terms and the relevant authority’s requirements. For advice tailored to your situation, consult an independent insurance advisor/broker or the responsible office. No liability is accepted for decisions made based on this page. Transparency: some links are referral links; if you take out a policy we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

What we do not do

• No individual advice. Our guides are general information. They do not replace advice from an independent insurance advisor or broker, a tax advisor, a lawyer or the responsible authority.
• No promises of visa acceptance. Consulates decide what they accept. We report their published rules and tell you to confirm with them.
• No ratings or testimonials. We do not publish star ratings, customer reviews or “best plan” verdicts, and we do not claim what most retirees or expats choose.

How can you report an error?

If you find a figure that is out of date or a statement that is wrong, please write to us at the postal address in our imprint. It helps if you name the page, quote the statement and tell us which official source shows the correct information. We check every report against the source. If we were wrong, we correct the page and its “Updated” date changes with the correction.

How were our comparison pages built?

Our comparison pages bring the country facts sheets together in one place. They use the same rules as every other page: official sources first, amounts in the currency the authority publishes, conflicts shown, and our own arithmetic marked as such.

• Retirement visas by country: income, age, insurance and residence rules side by side.
• Healthcare systems by country: how public and private care work for foreign residents.
• Best countries to retire: countries compared on stated criteria, not on opinion.
• Cheapest countries to retire: living costs from official data, with labelled price indexes where none exists.
• Visa health insurance requirements by country: what each visa asks of your health cover.

For a general introduction to cover abroad, start with expat health insurance explained or what international health insurance costs.