Chinese Student Health Insurance in Ontario

Posted on Monday, August 15th, 2011 at 1:51 pm

Ontario offers its citizens and permanent resident’s health care under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). If you will be a full-time student in Ontario you are ineligible for this plan unless you are independently employed. If you cannot enroll in the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, you may be required to enroll in the University Health Insurance Plan (UHIP) instead.

Eligibility for the UHIP is determined based on whether you are a full time student with a valid study permit or temporary resident visa issued by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. As a foreign student, you must also be registered in a degree program at an accredited and participating Ontario university or affiliated college and pursuing an undergraduate, graduate or post graduate degree. The UHIP begins when you first arrive in Ontario and covers hospital and medical services of non-resident students at Ontario Universities and affiliated colleges and their families.

If you are a Chinese student studying in Ontario, however, you will need to be familiar with what is and what is not covered under the UHIP plan. Benefits like vision, dental, prescription medication are specifically excluded from the plan so if you’d like additional coverage you would need to purchase a private student health insurance plan to cover additional services. The UHIP plan will cover you in other provinces, but will only cover medically necessary emergency services if you travel to another country. If that is the case you may want to consider purchasing a student travel insurance plan for any out-of-country traveling you intend to do.

Posted by Jennifer Frankel

Jennifer is the International Director at International Student Insurance. Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Florida where she holds a Masters in International Business and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration. She has lived and worked abroad in Mexico, Chile, Costa Rica and England, and traveled extensively in South America, Europe and Asia.