I only got the health insurance because the retirement visa required it. Eight months later, that mandatory paperwork was the one thing that stopped a heart attack from wiping me out financially.

I'm British, 68, and moved to Hua Hin just over a year ago after retiring, with my wife Carol, 65. When we sorted out the retirement visa, we found out Thailand requires health insurance with specific minimum coverage for this type of visa, something I saw at the time more as an expensive bureaucratic hoop than something we'd actually need.

We picked a policy from a local insurer that met the visa's requirements, paying the annual premium almost begrudgingly, working out loud with Carol how much we'd have saved if it hadn't been compulsory.

Eight months later, while playing golf one morning with a few other retirees from the club, I felt a sharp pain in my chest that I initially tried to shrug off, blaming the heat. I ended up on the ground at the ninth hole, and one of my playing partners, who turned out to be a retired nurse, was the one who recognised the symptoms of a heart attack and insisted on calling an ambulance right away.

I spent five days in intensive care at a private hospital in Hua Hin, with a catheterisation and two stents fitted, followed by another week of general hospitalisation before I could go home.

The final bill, which Carol kept out of curiosity more than necessity, ran into several hundred thousand baht. The insurance covered practically all of it, leaving us with only small out-of-pocket extras we paid without much fuss.

Without that insurance, which I'd taken out without any real conviction months earlier, we'd have had to urgently sell assets back in the UK, or worse, I might not have received the immediate care that likely saved my life that morning on the golf course.

I'm still playing golf, more carefully now, and Carol checks every year, before renewing the visa, that the coverage still meets the requirements and that it's also still what we actually need, not just the cheapest option that scrapes past the minimum. What I used to see as an expense forced on us by Thai bureaucracy, I now see, without question, as the best financial decision I made moving here.