I was 27 and felt invincible, so I never bothered with health insurance. A motorbike accident on Koh Samui taught me exactly what that feeling of invincibility costs, in baht and in loan interest.
In short
Jordan, a 27-year-old Canadian working remotely from Koh Samui, never saw the need for private health insurance. A motorbike accident leaves him with a hospital bill that takes over a year to finish paying off.
I'm Canadian, 27, and had been working remotely from Koh Samui for eight months when the accident happened. Like a lot of young foreigners who arrive with a remote job and good health, I never saw a real need for private health insurance: I figured that, worst case, I could cover any medical costs with my credit card.
The accident happened in a fairly dumb way, honestly: I lost control of the bike on a wet corner near Lamai, no other vehicle involved, and ended up with a fractured femur that needed surgery with a plate and screws.
The private hospital that treated me initially, the closest one to where it happened, asked for a sizeable deposit before even operating, which I paid on the credit card without thinking too much about it at the time, still dazed by the pain and the situation.
The surgery and the five days of hospitalisation that followed brought the total bill to a figure well beyond what I had available on the card, forcing me to arrange an urgent transfer from my account in Canada, and to ask my parents to front some of the money while I liquidated some savings I had invested.
I ended up paying my parents back over more than a year, which, on top of the hit to my savings, left me feeling a lot more vulnerable than I'd ever imagined I'd feel living here "just" 27 and in good health.
A coworking acquaintance, who did have insurance and had gone through something similar months earlier, was the one who, right there at the hospital, insisted I get a policy the moment I could walk again, instead of continuing to rely on a credit card as my backup plan.
I now have private health insurance with motorbike accident coverage included, something a lot of young people who move here with remote jobs don't even consider getting until, like me, it hits close to home. What I learned the expensive way is that feeling invincible at 27 has nothing to do with what can actually happen on a wet corner on an ordinary Tuesday.
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