Health and life cover for family offices — an independent second opinion
Every policy was sensible when it was bought. Together, across households and countries and the years they were arranged in, they are not a plan — and nobody has read all of them at the same time, because that has never been anybody's job.
What a family-office review covers
Read side by side, which is the part nobody has done.
The work is less about finding a policy than about reading everything that already exists at once — across households, countries and the years they were bought in.
Across households, not across headcount
A family office is not buying a benefits programme. It is holding exposure across several households, often in different countries, sometimes in different generations — and the cover was usually assembled one decision at a time, by different people, in different years.
Where the arrangements stop agreeing with each other
Two policies from two countries, bought for good reasons, that overlap in one place and leave a gap in another. Nobody has read them side by side, because reading them side by side is a specific job and it has never been anybody's.
What moves, and what does not
The question that decides most of it: which of these arrangements survive a move, a change of residence, or a principal spending more of the year somewhere else. Portability is rarely on the summary and is frequently the whole answer.
And if the arrangements hold up, the report says they hold up, and you have that in writing from someone who was not paid to arrange them.
What we are not going to do
No client counts, no logo wall.
You will not find a number of families served on this page, or assets referenced, or a logo wall. Those are the easiest claims in this industry to make and the hardest to check, which is precisely why they are everywhere.
What we will put in writing instead: who reads your arrangements, how we are paid for reading them, and the reasoning behind every recommendation. All three are verifiable. A client count is not.
This is the audience least likely to forgive a number that turns out to be soft, and the one most used to asking where a figure came from. So we would rather bring none than bring one we cannot stand behind.
What we see across households
Three ways this goes wrong, and all three are avoidable.
Cover assembled one decision at a time
Each policy was sensible when it was bought. Together they are not a structure — they are a sediment. The overlaps cost money quietly and the gaps cost money once, and neither shows up until somebody looks at all of it at the same time.
The generation nobody re-underwrote
Cover arranged around principals often treats adult children and elderly parents as afterthoughts, on terms nobody revisited. Health changes; underwriting does not go backwards. The moment to look is while everyone is well, which is precisely the moment nobody feels the need to.
Advice you cannot check
The uncomfortable one, and we would rather say it than not: when an adviser is paid by the product, the recommendation and the incentive point the same way and you cannot tell them apart. We publish how we are paid — a courtage from the insurer, a percentage of premium — precisely so you do not have to take that on trust.
Any of these sound like your situation? See how a review works
Why a family office publishes this
Multiple residences, and a premium that follows one of them.
The benchmark we cite through these pages is published by a medical family office, which is why it prices something a private bank's cost-of-living index does not: what comparable private medical cover actually costs, country by country, rather than what a country spends on health.
For a household with residences in more than one jurisdiction the useful finding is the spread. The United States prices at roughly $17,970 a year, Monaco at about $7,630 — and Monaco carries one of the steepest age curves in the whole index, with the older profile paying about 1.72 times the younger one on our arithmetic against those figures. A structure that is efficient for a principal at forty is not automatically efficient for the same principal at sixty, or for a parent joining the policy.
What the index cannot do is tell you which residence your cover should name, whether one policy can span the household, or what happens to a claim made in a country the policy does not name. Those are the questions a review answers in writing, and they are why the number is a starting point rather than an answer.
| Rank | Country | At 24 | At 35 | At 50 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | $12,773 | $18,765 | $22,368 | $17,969 |
| 2 | Hong Kong (SAR) | $11,360 | $15,822 | $21,344 | $16,175 |
| 5 | United Kingdom | $8,191 | $11,513 | $15,476 | $11,727 |
| 15 | Switzerland | $6,392 | $8,017 | $12,328 | $8,912 |
| 29 | Monaco | $5,491 | $6,404 | $11,006 | $7,634 |
Source: SIP Health Cost Index 2025, SIP Medical Family Office. Data as at August 2025, published 1 December 2025. Averages across seven international insurers and three standard profiles — not quotes, and not a comparison of those insurers against each other. Any comparison or tax-adjusted figure above is our own arithmetic on SIP's published numbers.
All fifty countries, and the three things the ranking hidesHow a review works
What a first review actually looks like.
Arranging international cover for the first time, or checking what you already hold — the process is the same, in this order.
The demand intake
Right after you book, we email you a short intake form. Where you are, where you're going, who's coming with you, anything you already hold. It takes a few minutes, and it means the 45 minutes start prepared — with your situation, not with paperwork.
We study your situation
Not products first. Your life first. We look at the country you're moving to and what it legally requires, the country after that if there is one, who depends on you, and where the real exposure sits. We don't quote anything at this stage.
The consultation
45 minutes, by video, in English. Every question you bring gets an answer. We compare the international insurers on how each of them behaves in your situation — underwriting, renewal, exclusions, and what happens on the day a claim is filed. If there is already a policy in force, we go through it clause by clause. Nothing is pitched at the end of it.
Your Private Client Report
One working day later, your Private Client Report arrives — around twelve pages setting out what we found, what we weighed it against, what each option costs, and why we would choose one over the others. What to arrange, what to keep, and where you are paying for something that isn't doing any work. Sometimes the report says: keep what you have. It is yours either way.
45 minutes. By video, wherever you are. Free. Nothing has to change afterwards.
The Cleveland Clinic charges $1,690 for a written second opinion. Ours comes with the review, and there is no fee for it.
The team
The people who'll actually review your situation.
Specialists by topic, not a rota. You'll know who you're speaking to before you book, and you'll speak to the same person again next year.
Robert Kolar
Health insurance
Twenty-plus years spent on the distance between what a health policy promises and what it pays when a claim actually lands. German and English. He has been the foreigner working out somebody else's health system from the outside, which is its own kind of qualification.
Book with Robert
Nicole Bohne
Life · Protection · Planning
Spent her career inside Basler Versicherung and Zurich Insurance before crossing to this side of the table. Nicole reads a life-cover decision against the whole household — who depends on whom, what already exists, and whether the answer is a policy at all.
Book with Nicole
Hans Steiner
Pension · Tax · Cross-border
Financial Planner IAF, Federal Diploma of Higher Education. German, English and French. Hans takes the cases where a move collides with a pension, with two tax systems, or with both at once.
Book with HansFamily office questions
What family offices actually ask us.
What is different about advising a family office?
The unit is the household rather than the headcount, and there is usually more than one of them, in more than one country, on arrangements bought years apart. The work is less about finding a policy and more about reading everything that already exists at the same time — which is a job nobody has usually been given.
We already have advisers. Why would we need another?
Often you do not, and we will say so. Where we are useful is as a second opinion on cover specifically — read by someone who is not the person who arranged it, and who publishes how they are paid. If the arrangements hold up, the report says they hold up and you have that in writing.
Do you take custody, manage assets or sell products?
No. We review health and life cover and we write a report. Our regulatory position and what it permits is ⟨MISSING.md A1 — the status line and the duty clause, in a lawyer's words rather than ours⟩, and it is verifiable at ⟨MISSING.md A2⟩.
Can you work alongside our existing brokers?
Yes, and it is often the most useful arrangement — they hold the relationship, we read the wording. We are not trying to displace anyone. A review that concludes the incumbent did a good job is a real outcome and one we deliver regularly.
Who would we actually be dealing with?
Named people, not an account team. ⟨Which of Robert, Nicole and Hans lead this work — MISSING.md A12⟩. The same person who reads your arrangements writes the report and takes the follow-up call, because handing it on is where the reasoning gets lost.
From the journal
Reading on this situation.
facts checked 2026-08-10
Dubai to Cyprus: cheaper cover, and GESY may not take you
Cover runs about 15% cheaper in Cyprus than in the UAE. But GESY is gated on employment or a qualifying status, so a household moving on capital stays outside.
Read it
facts checked 2026-08-10
Dubai to Hong Kong: the largest step-up in cover cost
Hong Kong ranks 2nd of fifty countries for private medical cover, about 67 per cent above the UAE. What that measured gap means for a household leaving Dubai.
Read it
facts checked 2026-08-10
Dubai to Singapore: the policy crosses, the subsidy does not
Singapore keys its health subsidies to citizenship and permanent residence — so a household arriving from Dubai lands with no public floor underneath it at all.
Read it
facts checked 2026-08-10
Dubai to Switzerland: cheaper cover, nothing that transfers
The UAE mandate is employer-linked and ends with the permit. Switzerland compels each individual to hold KVG basic cover within three months of arrival.
Read itReady for a calm conversation about cover?
A first review is free — 45 minutes, in English, wherever in the world you happen to be. We'll listen first. Then you'll hear exactly what we would arrange if the situation were ours. What you do with that is yours to decide.
Book a reviewOr write to hello@expatsavvy.com — we reply within the working day.