Repatriation and Considerations

Death has presented a new modern problem.

The moving across geographical boundaries have now become relatively and economically easy due to e-commerce, telecommunication, softening migration and policies,   increasing literacy, English proficiency and technical competency of a broadening employment base from different countries. This has allowed increasing mobility of international labor, which means more and more professionals are now rapidly moving not just across jobs but across borders. This fluid transnational traffic has made health and death a very complicated difficulty for both individuals and companies. And the growing risks of disaster, diseases and other accidents have further made the need for repatriation services, including flying human remains, a tall task.

The Need for Repatriation 

In cases of health problems and death, the most obvious and immediate need is transportation. That is, the need to move a sick or dead person out of the country and into either a better health facility to get treatment or to fly the deceased body back home. As such, there is a rising demand for air ambulance operators and services and a corollary rise in costs of these operations due to growing requirement for air ambulance operators to offer a faster, longer-distance, more flexible and sophisticated services to the both individual and clients companies. For companies employing a number of migrant workers, the challenge is to secure arrangements with such service providers as a basic need of operating overseas.

This is has further evolved into a nightmare since more than 25% of international assignees leave their employer within two years of returning home and more and more companies company are now planning for medical and services for repatriation of deceased body that can help combat any reverse culture shock issues the assignee or family may experience or which may result to labor law infringement on the part of the company. 

Insurance and Repatriation

Among individual workers and professionals, the problem is insurance.  More and more individuals are demanding more their insurance companies to provide extended repatriation services and many overseas employees are willing to pay extra premium for ‘repatriation’ services to their home country. Simply put, many employees would rather pay extra money to make sure that they get home, literally, dead or alive.

In response to these needs, repatriation service companies in Singapore have started including a range of medical treatment assistance in addition to the logistic services for flying or repatriating the deceased back to Singapore. As such, there are now medical evacuation and repatriation packages that offer medical and health care coverage similar to typical travel insurance. However, the cost of flying a patient or deceased body comes at an additional cost of $25,000 to $150,000 per flight.  

If individuals and professionals find this too expensive, there are the traditional options of securing repatriation services and accident or medical insurance from separate providers. Although it is unlikely the cost will significantly differ. By itself, a typical repatriation service company covers collateral costs of repatriation such as visa and lease cancellation, security deposit recovery, utility service cancellation and disconnection, sale and disposal of unwanted items, handyman services, home cleaning, moving services, mail forwarding and even temporary housing assistance.