Travel insurance vs health insurance for the DNV
You are holding a policy and you want to know whether it will do. Before anyone can answer that, there is a smaller question: which of the two kinds of contract have you actually got? The answer is in your own document, and this is how to find it in about ten minutes.
Two products, built around two different things
A travel policy is written around a journey. It has a start, an end, and a list of things that can go wrong while you are away from wherever you normally live. It is built to get you treated and, if necessary, get you home.
A residence health policy is written around living somewhere. It assumes Spain is where you are, it runs as a term of cover rather than as a trip, and it is meant to carry ordinary care over time: a family doctor, a hospital consultant, tests, something that turns out to need following up for a year.
A digital nomad visa application is an application to live in Spain. So the two are not better and worse versions of the same product. They answer different questions, and the paperwork each one produces describes a different arrangement.
What a policy has to include for a DNV application is a separate matter. What a private policy has to do sets that out.
Where official guidance addresses this kind of policy by name, we quote its wording here with the source and the date we checked it. Until then, what your consulate or office currently asks for is the thing to go by. How we source and check this.
Three questions that tell you which one you hold
Not what the policy is called on the front page: what it says in the schedule and the conditions. A product name is a starting point, and the conditions are the contract. Answer these three in writing, about the actual document in front of you.
What is the cover attached to?
A trip, or a period of living somewhere? Look for wording about journeys, departures, returns, destinations, or a maximum number of days away at once. Look equally for wording about where you live and how long the term runs.
Where to look: the schedule, and the definitions at the front of the conditions — “trip”, “journey”, “period of insurance”, “residence”.
What is the term measured from?
The dates you travel, or a term of cover that runs whatever you are doing that week? A policy can last a full twelve months and still be organised around journeys taken inside those twelve months. Twelve months is a length; it is not a structure.
Where to look: the effective dates on the schedule, and any condition capping a single continuous trip or stay — “90 days”, “no more than 31 days per journey”.
Who does it assume you are?
Somebody whose home is elsewhere and who is away from it, or somebody who lives at the address on the policy? This is usually stated outright, and it is the clearest single indicator in most documents. If it assumes you will be going home, it was not written for somebody who has moved.
Where to look: eligibility, residency conditions, and anything the policy says about your normal country of residence.
None of those three answers is a verdict, and none of them tells you whether your application is in order. What they give you is the one fact everything else depends on: which kind of contract you are holding. Until you can answer them, there is nothing to compare against the requirements, because you do not yet know what you are comparing.
“But mine is comprehensive” — why that is the wrong question
A benefit table tells you how much a contract pays and for what. It does not tell you what kind of contract it is. Those are two separate facts, and the price is a poor guide to either: an expensive policy written around journeys is still written around journeys, and a modest policy written around living somewhere is still written around living somewhere.
There is a practical version of this that catches people out. A policy built for a journey tends to be built to deal with something sudden and then get you home; a policy built for living somewhere has to carry the dull, continuing things — a referral, a scan, a course of care that runs on for months, a condition that needs reviewing every year. Somebody who has actually moved needs the second sort, whatever the first one pays out per claim.
So “surely this is enough” is a comparison, and a comparison needs two things: the requirements, which live on the requirements page, and a clear statement of what you are holding, which is what the three questions above give you. Skipping the second is how people end up trusting a number instead of a contract.
Two more things worth writing down from your own document
How the money actually moves. Some policies arrange for the clinic or hospital to be paid directly; others expect you to pay first and claim the cost back afterwards. Whichever yours does, it is written down — usually under claims, sometimes under how to use your policy. It is worth knowing, because it changes what using the cover feels like on the day you need it.
Who actually issued it. The company named on the schedule as the insurer is often not the brand that sold you the policy: a distributor, a travel provider, an airline or a card issuer may have arranged cover underwritten by somebody else. Write down the name that appears as the insurer, because that is the company your document is about, and it is the name anybody reading your file will look for.
Six mistakes this comparison exists to prevent
- Treating “annual” as the deciding word. Twelve months of cover and cover built around living somewhere are not the same thing. A policy can be annual and still be organised around trips taken inside the year.
- Reading the brand, the currency or the language of the certificate as proof of what it is. A document issued in Spanish, by a company you have heard of, still says only what it says. The conditions decide; the letterhead does not.
- Assuming the two are rivals. They answer different questions, and holding one settles nothing about the other. “I already have insurance” is where most of this goes wrong: it answers a question nobody asked.
- Sending the document you already had instead of the one describing what you actually hold. If you buy a second policy, the old certificate does not become evidence of the new one. The rule that prevents most of these problems is on the requirements page: evidence describes the policy you actually hold, never the policy you asked for.
- Checking one person and stopping. If more than one person is on the application, each has their own document and their own answer to the three questions above. A strong document for one person does not speak for anybody else. Family applications are worked out person by person.
- Assuming you need to buy anything at all. Plenty of applicants show healthcare cover from somewhere other than a policy they pay for. Working out which of the two you are holding is worth doing, but not before you know whether either of them is what your application needs.
Four things to settle before you rely on what you hold
Ask your own consulate or office what it wants to see. Go by what they currently ask for, and get the answer in writing if you can.
Take any promise of an outcome with caution. Whether an application is accepted is for the Spanish authority handling it to decide, and anybody who guarantees you a result is guessing.
Check whether you need to buy anything at all. Many applicants show healthcare cover from somewhere else entirely, and the answer depends on how you work and how your Social Security will be handled. That question has its own page, and it is the one to read first if you are unsure.
Read the requirements properly, once. Then hold your own document up against them, line by line, rather than against the description you were given.
If you are not sure you need a policy at all
Nothing above assumes you need a policy — only that you are holding one and want to know what it is. If how you work, or an agreement between Spain and your home country, is what answers the healthcare question for you, the comparison is interesting but not decisive for your application.
Not sure which of the two you are holding?
Tell us what your document says and we will go through it with you. This is a look at the policy you already have rather than a quote: if what you hold is already the right kind of contract for what your application needs, there is nothing here for us to sell you.
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Common questions
Is the policy I bought for my trip enough for a DNV application?
Start by working out what you are holding, using the three questions above, then hold it up against the requirements page line by line. A policy you cannot describe cannot be checked against anything. If it comes out close but not clear, ask the office you are applying through before you rely on it.
My policy pays medical costs in Spain — isn't that health insurance?
It pays medical costs, and your benefit table settles that much. Whether it is the kind of contract somebody moving to Spain is expected to hold is a different question, and it is answered in the eligibility and definitions sections rather than in the benefits. The two facts are independent, which is exactly why this comparison exists.
Can I hold both kinds of policy?
Yes. They answer different questions, and holding one decides nothing about the other. What your application relies on and what you want in place for a trip home are two separate decisions, and only the first one is settled here.
Where do I find what my policy has to include?
On the requirements page, element by element and with the conditions attached. It opens by asking whether you need to buy anything at all, which is worth settling first.