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How to Renew Your European Health Insurance Card
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Your European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) is generally valid for a total of five years. This long time could sometimes make card holders to forget about the card and only remember about it when the card's expiry date is almost due. Knowing the procedure to follow when renewing your card at such times will help you get the replacement within the necessary time hence reducing the number of days or weeks you stay without an active cover. Find out for further details on EHIC Direct right here.
The renewal process varies depending on who you are and where you are living
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UK Residents
UK residents who are living within UK have the simplest EHIC card renewal procedure possible. If you are in this lot, consider yourself lucky. You can renew your card online as long as none of your personal details have changed within the five years of holding the EHIC card. Learn more about european health insurance cards, Click Here.
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Non-EAA Nationals
Non EEA nationals who are not Swiss nationals have to provide backup information to prove that they are eligible to the EHIC. This is done by completing the EHIC application form and attaching a copy of your UK residence permit or Visa. You will have to post the documents to NHS Business Services Authority. This process could be a bit slower than what UK residents with no documentations changes receive when applying for their replacement online.
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If you live abroad
Some of the people living abroad could be eligible to the EHIC card. The most common are people who receive UK state pensions or any form of exportable UK benefit, frontier workers or individuals living abroad but are family members to someone who works in the UK.
The application procedure, in this case, is by contacting an Overseas Healthcare Team that specializes in helping such UK bonafide card holders renew or apply for their EHIC.
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Handling family renewals
It is advised that you use the details of all family card holders when doing any single renewal. The benefit here is that all the family details will remain linked and the system will renew any other family card whose expiration date is soon.
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More details about renewing online will vary depending on what part of your personal details have changed. If it is a name change, you will need your PIN to effect the change when renewing the card. If the address has changed and you had previously informed EHIC of the change, you can go ahead and renew your card. Just remember to enter the new address when submitting the renewal application form. Take a look at this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Health_Insurance_Card for more information.