We have private health insurance and several pension/life insurance policies that will pay certain benefits if any of us are hospitalized. They don’t cost us 5,000 quid a year, however they won’t cough up millions of pesos that may be needed for a major heart surgery at St Lukes.

The company we use for private health insurance is Caritas Health Shield. It’s not family insurance, so each one of us has to have their own separate policy. We payed around 50,000php each per annum over a 5 year period. The insurance is then valid for a period of 15 years starting from the date of the first payment. Make sense?
Without going through the whole policy Im not really sure exactly how much we could claim at one time, as insurance policies always have lots of small print! The thing I like about it is, even if you have no medical problems that year your are entitled to free outpatient services, annual physical examination and dental care.

Here’s their website http://www.caritashealthshield.com.ph/

Steve, I don’t know what age restrictions, if any they have but I will put you in touch with someone at Caritas when you want to inquire.
As others have said, keep a nice wedge tucked away somewhere just in case