Umrah and Haj pilgrims may have to pay the premium for mandatory health insurance. Visitors to Saudi Arabia must select a health insurance policy of their choice when applying for a visa.
Most inbound travellers to Saudi Arabia must have travel health insurance. The few excluded groups include pilgrims and medical tourists.
Visitors to Saudi Arabia must select a health insurance policy of their choice when applying for the visa at the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and pay online.
The Council of Cooperative Health Insurance (CCHI) is studying the possibility of including Haj and Umrah pilgrims in the compulsory insurance scheme. It gets 3.7 million pilgrims each year.
Seven licensed insurers in Saudi Arabia offer the insurance, and to stop medical tourists from using it to pay for treatment, the cover excludes any planned medical treatment in the country.
Although agreed in 2014, the authorities only began enforcing the rules on early 2016. Visitors from Egypt, India and Pakistan are not forced to have insurance but will be by the end of 2016.
After 40 years of oil wealth, Saudi Arabia had a $100 billion budget deficit in 2015. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Kuwait— all facing significant fiscal pressure to maintain their economic and social programs and ensure domestic stability—keep dragging final oil export prices down as they compete for the same market share and to retain clients.
The global oil glut means that Saudi Arabia has to adopt austerity measures to balance the books, making locals and others pay for healthcare that was once free.
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