A new health insurance plan has become available, offered by Costa Rica’s national insurance program, INS.

What makes this one so special?

It offers health insurance to residents AND non-residents who have pre-existing conditions!

Previously if you had pre-existing conditions, the only option was to become a resident and use the public Caja system. Now, you have a choice!

This is really great news and an important milestone in Costa Rica’s progress as a country.

Banking update:

In the book I wrote about how there isn’t an FDIC insurance program like the US has, to protect people’s money. That was what a bank representative told me when I was doing research for the book.

A few weeks ago, I came across an article that suggested there was some type of program. So I did more research and talked with another bank rep, and they told me that yes, there is a program to recover money if a bank fails. I was also told only about $11,000 would be covered.

But… I have personally known people who had large amounts of money go missing from their account and it was never recovered and no insurance program stepped in.

It’s often times hard to get an accurate answer here or get help from the government when problems arise. So my recommendation still is to keep minimal amounts of money in Costa Rica banks.

If you have questions about either of these topics, please contact me here.

For those of you with the book: The book was just recently updated (June 2024) with this information so if you have the Kindle version, please ensure you check for an update. For paperbacks, you’ll want to make a note in the Healthcare and Banking chapters.