How a review works — the intake, the consultation and the written report
Arranging international cover for the first time, or checking what you already hold — the process is the same, in this order. Nothing is placed, signed or quoted on the call.
The process
What a first review actually looks like.
Four steps over about a week, most of the work happening before you speak to anyone.
The 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 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.
Your Private Client Report
One working day later, around twelve pages: what we found, what we weighed it against, what each option costs, and why we would choose one over the others. Sometimes the report says keep what you have. It is yours either way.
Before we say anything
What we read, and in what order.
Your life first, products last. That ordering is the whole method, and it is why the recommendation at the end is usually shorter than people expect.
We start with what the country you are moving to legally requires — which is rarely what the relocation pack says, and changes more often than the guides that quote it. Then the country after that, if there is one, because cover bought for a single posting is the most common expensive mistake we see. Then who depends on you, and what happens to them if the worst of it lands.
Only then the policies. If you already hold cover, we read the wording rather than the brochure — the underwriting basis, how renewal is priced, what is excluded, and what the schedule says happens on the day a claim is filed. Those four are where a policy that looked generous turns out to fight.
Nothing is quoted at this stage. A quote before the reading is a guess with a number attached to it.
The deliverable
The advice is a document.
Not a call that evaporates, not a quote sheet with our margin hidden in it. A written report: what you hold, what it actually does, what we would change and why — with the reasoning shown, so you can check it or challenge it.
It arrives within one working day of the consultation. We publish that number because nobody else in this category states one, and because a deliverable without a deadline is a promise without a shape.
It is yours either way. Whether you act on it, take it to another adviser, or hand it to your company's finance team — the document belongs to you, and nothing in it is written to be unusable without us.
Afterwards
Nothing has to change.
The review is free and it ends with a document, not an obligation. If the report says keep what you have, that is the end of it — and that outcome is common enough that we write the sentence into the report rather than treat it as a failure.
If you do want something arranged, we arrange it, and your details reach an insurer only once you have said so. If you would rather take the report to someone else, it is written to be usable without us.
For clients whose cover we place, the review repeats every year, for as long as you are a client. That is the part that matters most in this category: cover bought correctly at 34 is not still correct at 47, and nobody re-reads it unless re-reading it is someone's job.
Why you can trust us
Independent by structure, not by adjective.
Comparison sites are paid by the insurers they list. Captive agents represent one carrier. Neither of those is independent, however the homepage words it.
Here is our structure, plainly. International cover is placed through SIP Medical Family Office — independent consultants in health management and international medical insurance, established in Switzerland since 1997, whose group companies are licensed as medical insurance intermediaries for the EU/EEA and the United Kingdom. We hold no insurance licences of our own, and that arrangement covers Switzerland, European Union, United Kingdom.
Working under a principal's licences is ordinary in this industry and rarely admitted. We say it in the first paragraph because the alternative — letting you assume we hold our own paper — is the kind of small omission this page exists to argue against. We hold no exclusive arrangement with any insurer, and no insurer owns any part of this business.
Here's the mechanism, because "independent" is easy to write and hard to check. International cover is placed on a courtage basis: the insurer pays a percentage of the premium when a policy is placed. It is a percentage of the premium, which means we have no reason to sell you more cover than you need and no reason to steer you towards the most expensive plan. What we do have a reason to do is place you well — because we review your cover with you every year, for as long as you're our client, and a policy that turns out to be wrong is our problem too.
Check it rather than take our word for it. The entries are SIP's, not ours — we hold no licence of our own to look up: FINMA intermediary register — Switzerland · FMA register — Liechtenstein, SIP Europe AG licence 10116 · FCA register — United Kingdom. The full arrangement is set out on our about page.
Ready 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.