pablo el sueco

In an email yesterday, I asked the LTR visa unit what documentation will be required to confirm compliance with the self-insurance provision at the 5-year point. Would they require 5 years of bank statements? They responded as follows:

Thanks for your response. I won't trouble you any further as I am looking for assistance closer to BKK. Best wishes to you on your upcoming move.

@moogradod I've copy-pasted your excellent comment from a topic in a different forum: (page 75 of the topic entitled "Thai government to tax all income from abroad for tax residents starting 2024"). I'd like to respond here in this topic which is a discussion of Wills in Thailand. I assume the small company to which you refer is a law office in the area of BKK. Your review of their success in providing perfect Wills for you and your wife impresses me. I would like to consult with them about getting a perfectly done Thai Will for myself. Would you share details about the name and location of this company? I, and possibly several other followers of this thread, would be extremely grateful.

I truly hope your bank is wrong. It astounds me that a bank can ignore the provisions set forth in a legally executed and properly recorded Will, and that the government becomes the de facto undesignated beneficiary of accounts that do not have a co-signer. Many of us have immigration deposits in bank accounts which cannot have a co-signer; it is distressing to learn that these assets will enrich the government rather than our loved ones upon our passing.

Thank you for posting your experience. It's clear that you have resolved the issue of the inheritance of your non-immigration accounts by making your Administrator a co-signer on those accounts. It's not clear to me, however, what will happen to your 800,000 immigration account after you die. Which of these two interpretations is correct according to your discussions with your bank? A. Your bank will not allow the administrator named in your will to access the 800,000 because he is not a co-signer on that account. B. Your bank will allow the administrator named in your will to access the 800,000 because you have made him a co-signer of your other accounts. Your response will help me understand this confusing situation.

Today, February 20, my status is approved for Wealthy Pensioners category. My application submission date was November 06.

Treasury Reporting Rates of Exchange has been updated for end-of-year 2022. The rate for 12/31/2022 is 34.52 baht to the US dollar.

It is my understanding that the 100k must have been on deposit for a year.

I posted my experience on page 2 of the topic entitled "Latest requirements to extend Non-OA visa". Here is a link to my post --

Thank you for posting your experience with qualifying for the medical cover by using your brokerage account. My experience has been different so far -- using your success as a guide, I submitted my brokerage account when I applied; unfortunately the BOI reviewer never commented on that but has instead demanded documentation of resources in the bank.

Applied 6 November and Request for Documentation came on 10 November. I had submitted an application in early October, but I later withdrew it before any action was taken. Perhaps the rapid turnaround for the second application was a result of having applied earlier.

My Status Column switched from "Pending" to "Request Additional Documents" when BOI asked for more documentation to support my $100,000 assets. They've asked for more documentation three times, and each time the interface has limited me to only 1 upload. I've now merged my remaining four PDFs into a single file which I shall upload if I can get them to, once again, request additional documentation.

I have not tried to qualify based on my health insurance which is a benefit of my state government retirement plan. I don't think the insurance company would cooperate by supplying the necessary certification of coverage. I have only tried to qualify based on USD 100,000 in bank assets or in ROTH IRA assets. BOI did contact me via online notification and email that they need more documentation for that purpose, but their interface only accepts one PDF file at a time. I have asked them by email to permit me to upload one last PDF file. It ony took 4 working days for them to contact me.

Health Coverage seems to be the only issue with which the former staff member (StaffBoi 009) had a problem. Rather than using my unlimited global health coverage to satisfy requirements, however, I am going the self-insured method. @mudcatposted that he satisfied Health Coverage self-insurance requirements by documenting his Roth IRA coverage. I have sufficient Roth IRA coverage; and I have sufficient bank deposits as well. It has just been a problem uploading the documentation; I have sent an email asking BOI to allow me to submit one more PDF file which hopefully will satisfy their inspection protocol.

Mine changed to "Screen 3" this morning as well.

I've been archiving messages in Gmail for over a year, and none have yet disappeared. I think there is a limit of 15GB on the standard Gmail storage capacity ... I don't know what action Gmail takes when you exceed that limit ... it probably just doesn't permit you to store additional archives ... I doubt if it would delete archived mail. I don't know whether Yahoo, Hotmail, and Gmail can be expected to work the same way. I've presented in above posts the method of archiving that works for me in Gmail. I'll invite others to comment whether there is a way to do it as you are accustomed to doing it in Yahoo and Hotmail.

I started this approach for my Gmail archive over a year ago, and I no longer recall whether Gmail established the ARCHIVED Messages Label, or whether I created it. If you don't already have an ARCHIVED Messages Label, you can add it yourself if you want to. Here's a screenshot of the way my Labels look within the Gmail Main Menu.

I'll tell you what works for me. I create a separate label, nested under ARCHIVED Messages, for each correspondent from whom I wish to save emails. First click on the three horizontal bars in the top left of the Gmail screen. This will open the Main Menu down the left side. Within this main Menu, find the LABELS designator and click on the PLUS (+) sign to open a dialog box. Inside the dialog box enter a new label name (e.g. "Uncle John", if you want to archive messages from your Uncle John; and then click the check box to nest the label; and finally select ARCHIVED Messages as the label under which to nest Uncle John's label. Now, when you wish to archive a message from Uncle John, just drag the message from the inbox to the label for Uncle John.

I'll share with you my guess -- I believe Insurance Companies follow guidelines established by the Thai General Insurance Association (TGIA) which is self-described as a trade organization for the non-life insurance industry in Thailand. LMG, for example, is a member of TGIA and, as such, must abide by the guidelines established by TGIA. The relevant Police Order outlining specific insurance requirements for O-A retirees, on the other hand, was written according to regulations established by the Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) which is a government body. The guidelines established by TGIA (a trade organization) are not in synch with the regulations established by MOPH (a government body). For the sake of integrity, they certainly should be in pefect synch, but they aren't. Since the Immigration Bureau is under the command of the Royal Thai Police, Immigration Officers ought to be following the regulations officially set forth under the Police Order, not the unofficial guidelines promulgated by the insurance industry -- why they don't follow their own Police Order is anybody's guess. The foregoing is simply my hypothesis which I contribute for the sake of discussion.

Beginning 1 October 2022, the official regulation no longer specifies a minimum amount of outpatient coverage. The official regulation to which I refer is the Police Order posted above by @ubonjoe. Officially, the insurance policy only need specify 3,000,000 baht coverage for all health procedures including Covid-19. LMG is offering a policy that satisfies the official regulation, and their policy happens to include a provision for outpatient coverage with a maximum of 60,000 baht. This provision of outpatient coverage by LMG seems compatible with the official regulation, since the official regulation does not express a minimum nor a maximum amount of outpatient coverage. As far as inpatient coverage is concerned, the policy offered by LMG limits the coverage to 3,500,000 baht, and this also seems to satisfy the official regulation. Personally, I interpret the Police Order's requirement for 3 million baht coverage as being the minimum amount of coverage for all health procedures combined, with no specified limits applying to inpatient vs outpatient procedures -- because that is what it says! The Police Order defines the official requirement, and the insurance policy you buy must conform to that minimum requirement, though it can exceed the minimum requirement. I suggest you ask for an explanation of what is required by your Immigration Office; and for your future protection, I further suggest you get the requirements in writing, dated, and signed by the supervisor. I agree, and so does at least one provincial Immigration Office. Unfortunately there is no Kingdom-wide oversight structure which monitors the implementation of official rules for consistency between offices and for conformity with regulations. It is not fair, but you are not alone. I used to work in an environment which developed and rolled out complicated government-mandated rule changes affecting a large segment of the population. The rollout procedure was limited at first to a small subset of the population until all the kinks were worked out; only after it was working perfectly would a project be rolled out to the population as a whole. This, I believe, is the approach being used by the government to implement Insurance Requirements intended to apply to all non-immigrant visas in the future.

I completely agree that only one's Immigration Office can answer the question, as each IO seems to follow their own interpretation of the rules. Since IO's interpretation of the rules seems to be fairly fluid at this time, I suggest that you get the requirements expressed in writing with the supervisor's signature before you put complete faith in their rule. Regarding the 60k outpatient coverage, this is the amount expressed in the policy that LMG is promoting. The Police Order is silent on the question of outpatient coverage.

On Sep 29, I purchased the policy that LMG said I needed to extend my stay after 1 October 2022. This policy states that I am covered for 3,500,000 baht inpatient (including for COVID-19) and 2,000 baht outpatient per visit with a limit of 30 outpatient visits for the duration of the policy period (which I assume could be expressed as 60,000 baht maximum outpatient coverage). On Oct 6, I appeared at my province's Immigration Office to extend my stay on an O-A for retirement. My extension was approved. However, I noticed that officers at the IO were still informing people that the current requirement was for 400,000 baht inpatient and 40,000 baht outpatient (no mention of COVID-19). This concerned me because this was the coverage required for the past two years -- not the current requirement promoted by the insurance company -- and definitely not the requirement stated in the Police Order requiring a minimum of 3 million baht. When I asked staff to explain the current insurance requirement they said they couldn't answer the question -- I must ask the supervisor as she was the only staff member who could answer the question. I then spoke to the supervisor, using my Thai friend as an interpreter. The supervisor said the requirement is as follows 400,000 baht for inpatient 40,000 baht for outpatient 100,000 USD for COVID-19 This response from the supervisor struck me as weird. The Police Order does not mention anything about 400,000 baht inpatient nor 40,000 baht outpatient. Nor does the Police Order state that the minimum of 100,000 USD applies only to COVID-19. I pressed the supervisor about that, and she said I needed to ask that question of my Insurance Agent. The Insurance Agent said, via a telephone conversation, that since October 1, IO's throughout the Kingdom were inconsistently applying the new rule -- some of LMG's clients were sailing through their extension using last year's coverage requirement and others were being rejected with last year's coverage requirement. The agent further stated that the supervisor's interpretation of the new requirement was officially correct -- but LMG had decided to write policies for a minimum 3,500,000 coverage applying not just to COVID-19, but for all health problems covered by the policy. On October 7, the IO supervisor telephoned my Thai friend and said that after coordinating with higher authorities, the rule is definitely 400,000 baht for inpatient 40,000 baht for outpatient 100,000 USD for COVID-19 I really don't understand this rule as it definitely is not in accordance with the Police Order. So far, in my opinion, this is a ludicrously mismanaged rollout of rules misinterpreted by everyone involved.

For the first 12 years of my stay, there were no changes. Thereafter, the following changes have left my head spinning 2019--must reappear 3 months after extension to prove 800,000 in bank. 2020--must submit TM28 Change of Address at extension application together with Cha Not, Tabien Baan, etc even if TM30 was done on the same date. 2020--12-month bank statement required at extension application. 2020--must reappear 3 months after extension to prove 800,000 in bank AND 6 months after extension to prove 800,000 in bank. 2020--must purchase TGIA insurance for 400,000 coverage. 2021--must reappear 3 months after extension to prove 800,000 in bank AND 6 months after extension to prove 400,000 in bank. 2022--must purchase TGIA insurance for 3,000,000 baht /or/ be able to prove equivalent foreign coverage thru embassy /or/ be able to prove self-insurance for 3,000,000 baht for 2 months prior to extension application after denial of insurance coverage -- caveat, insurance funds must be in a separate bank account from the 800,000 used to fund the extension. I'd say they've been pretty busy making up "new requirements" recently.

The process I went through yesterday, to convert to the 3.5M policy, consisted of these steps: I signed the Change of Coverage form, on which I selected 3.5 M Limit, Plan 3 (100,000) deductible; I signed the Renewal Notice form, renewing the policy I've had for the past 2 years; I paid the premium of 36,700 baht; I submitted the Change of Coverage form, the Renewal Notice form, a copy of my passport, and the payment receipt via e-mail to the insurance company; I received a response from the insurance company stating they will send a Health Certificate, and an E-Policy within 2 working days by e-mail; and they will send a Health Care Card by snail mail within 15 working days. After I receive the Health Certificate and E-Policy, I will query the insurance company whether they have updated the TGIA database with the new information so I can process my extension through Immigration.

I have just now paid the 36,700 baht premium for another year of LMG insurance; and I plan to submit my extension application next week. Meanwhile I am waiting to see whether my application for Elite Visa gets approved.