Which Sanitas plan should you choose for the DNV?
There are two to choose between, and for a good number of people the choice is already made by their age. Here is the order to decide in, what actually separates the two plans, and when the right answer is to buy nothing yet.
Decide in this order
The order matters more than the comparison does. People usually arrive asking which plan is better and leave having found that the real question was two steps earlier.
- Do you need a private policy at all? How you work and how you will be covered by Social Security decide this, and they decide it before any plan feature becomes relevant. Where the answer is no, the best plan in the world is still the wrong purchase.
- Who needs one? Cover is worked out one person at a time. A household can quite properly end up with one person on a policy and another with no need of one.
- Which plans can each of those people actually take? Age settles this for some people outright, and it is the quickest question on the list.
- How much cover do you want? Only now does the difference between the two plans matter, and it is a question about how you will live in Spain rather than about your application.
Your application does not ask which plan you preferred. It asks what you can show. That is why steps one and two come first, and why they cost nothing to answer. Not sure which side you're on? Ask for a quote anyway, because we check before recommending.
What actually separates the two plans
Sanitas calls these products Sanitas Residents para visado and Sanitas Residents Platinum para visado. “Para visado” means “for visa purposes”: they are the visa versions of the plans, not the standard EU ones.
Start with what they share, because it is most of it. Both are Visa Plans, open to non-EU, non-EEA and non-Swiss nationals. On the Sanitas Residents Visa Plan and the Sanitas Residents Platinum Visa Plan, waiting periods are waived under the current policy terms. Neither publishes a maximum age for continuing, and both run for 12 months with renewal governed by the current policy conditions.
What differs is short. The age you can join at: Residents up to 75, Platinum up to 64. What the cover reaches: Platinum includes benefits beyond treatment within the Sanitas network, and we'll confirm the current reimbursement and cover limits with you before you decide.
Prices differ by plan, age and where you live — how pricing works →. For the full table: Residents vs Residents Platinum Visa Plan →.
Which plan suits you depends on how you work, how you will be covered by Social Security, and how you are applying. The Spanish authorities make the final decision on your application.
When neither plan is the next step
Every other page about insurance assumes you are buying some. Often you are not, and this is the section we would want somebody to read first.
If your Spanish public cover is already active, your affiliation paperwork is what you show. What to submit instead →
If you are staying in another country's Social Security system, your documents need to show that you are entitled to healthcare in Spain, not only that you remain in that system. What your certificate proves →
And if your situation does not resolve cleanly, the next step is a conversation rather than a purchase: send us your situation →.
The situations that do not resolve cleanly are recognisable. If you are working through an employer of record, if you have one dominant client, if you own the company you invoice, if your employer has promised to register you in Spain but has not done it yet, or if there is somebody in your family nobody can yet document, then the answer is not on a plan page. It is a question about your own circumstances, and buying a policy does not answer it.
There is also a timing version of this. If you know you will need cover but you do not yet know the start date, the useful step is to get the health questions out of the way and settle the date afterwards, rather than buying early and finding the cover ran from the wrong day.
We would rather send you away with the right answer than sell you the wrong policy twice.
Sometimes your age decides it for you
This is the fastest question on the page, so take it early. New members can join the Sanitas Residents Visa Plan up to age 75, and the Sanitas Residents Platinum Visa Plan up to age 64.
So if you are 65 or over when you apply, Residents is the plan to look at, and the rest of the comparison stops being a decision. If you are under 64, both are open to you and the choice becomes a question about cover.
One thing to keep separate as you go: meeting the age condition is not the same as being accepted. Both plans are medically underwritten, and that is a decision about you rather than about your date of birth.
How will you actually use healthcare in Spain?
Once eligibility is settled, this is the whole of the remaining choice, and it is a question about your life rather than about your application.
The Sanitas Residents Visa Plan delivers care through the Sanitas network. It tends to suit somebody who will live in one place, register with clinicians there and use the network as their main route to planned care. That is most people, most of the time, and choosing it is not settling for less.
The Sanitas Residents Platinum Visa Plan includes benefits beyond treatment within the Sanitas network. We'll confirm the current reimbursement and cover limits with you before you decide, because the scope of every benefit is set by the current policy documents rather than by any summary of them.
Two questions usually settle which of those descriptions is yours. Will you live in one place? And how much time will you spend outside Spain? Answer them as things really are rather than as you hope they will be, because reaching for the bigger plan because bigger sounds safer is how people end up paying for a layer they never open.
Choosing with the after-visa years in mind
Most people keep this cover long after the application is a memory, and visa approval does not itself decide when the policy ends. So choose for how you will live in Spain, not only for the file you are about to submit. Platinum's added benefits matter most to people who want care beyond the network; Residents suits people who will live inside it. We'll confirm the current reimbursement and cover limits with you before you decide.
Or just tell us your situation
Answer the basics and pick “help me choose”. We'll check your situation first, then match you to the plan that fits.
Common questions
Is Platinum "better" for a visa application?
Current central guidance does not require the Platinum plan specifically. Where private insurance is what your application needs, which plan you choose depends on the applicable standard, the current policy terms, your eligibility and the cover you want. The receiving authority makes the final decision.
Is the cheaper plan enough?
If it covers what you want, yes. The cheaper plan is not a lesser version of your application, and paying more does not buy a better hearing. Choose on the cover you will use.
I'm over 64 — what are my options?
Residents is the plan to look at. New members can join Platinum up to age 64 and Residents up to age 75, so for a new applicant aged 65 to 75 the choice has already been made.
Can my family be on a different plan from me?
Quotes are built person by person, so say what you would like when you ask and we'll set out what is possible under the current terms with your quote. It is a reasonable thing to want when ages or circumstances differ.
Do I need both plans?
Nobody needs both. They are two versions of the same thing at different levels, so the decision is which one, not how many.
Can I move between the two later?
Ask us before you assume either way. Anything of that kind is governed by the current policy terms, and the answer belongs in your own documentation rather than on a web page.
What if I'm not sure private cover is even my route?
Then that is the first thing we check. Ask for a quote and we'll confirm it before recommending anything.