Allianz Care vs Cigna Global: international health insurance for families in Portugal and Spain

For many families who move to Portugal or Spain, a local health plan is the right answer: good private hospitals, a sensible premium, cover that works where they live. For others it is not enough. A family that splits the year between Lisbon, London and Florida, a parent who flies home to São Paulo or Mexico City every few months, children at boarding school abroad, or simply someone who wants the freedom to be treated at the best hospital for the condition, wherever it is — these households need an international private medical insurance plan (IPMI).

Two of the IPMI plans we are asked about most often are Allianz Care and Cigna Global. Adler & Rochefort places both. This article sets them side by side: how each is built, what is included and what is optional, and the questions that usually decide between them. It is not a ranking — the right plan depends on the family.

Local plan or international plan?

Portuguese and Spanish private health plans are designed around a domestic network of hospitals and clinics. They work well for residents who will be treated where they live, but they share some limits that matter to internationally mobile families:

• Annual limits. Local plans carry annual caps per cover — perfectly adequate for routine care, sometimes tight for a long oncology treatment or a complex surgery.
• Territory. Cover abroad is usually limited to emergencies during travel. Planned treatment in another country is generally outside the plan.
• Entry conditions. In Portugal, local insurers ask for a Portuguese tax number and address for the policyholder and every insured person, and many plans have maximum entry ages.

An international plan works the other way round. It is built for people who live outside their country of origin, its annual limits are measured in millions, it covers planned treatment across a chosen area of the world — Europe, worldwide excluding the United States, or worldwide — and it follows the family if they move again. Medical evacuation and repatriation are part of the design rather than an afterthought.

Allianz Care: the new plan range

Allianz Care is the international health brand of Allianz Partners. In November 2025 it launched a new range of plans for individuals and families living abroad for at least twelve months, sold primarily in the EU and the UK.

• Three core plans: Base, Enhanced and Signature. Each includes in-patient treatment, a private room in hospital and medical repatriation as standard.
• Maternity is included in Enhanced and Signature, after a twelve-month waiting period.
• Out-patient and dental are optional additions, so a family can decide how much of its day-to-day care it wants insured.
• Cancer screenings, health checks and hormone replacement therapy are covered across the range, and out-patient psychiatry and psychotherapy carry no waiting period.
• A Europe area of cover sits alongside the wider worldwide options — useful for families whose life is firmly European and who do not need, or want to pay for, cover in the United States.

The design is deliberately complete at the core: the hospital and repatriation side of the plan is already built in, and the family adds out-patient and dental according to how it uses healthcare.

Cigna Global: a modular plan

Cigna Global is the individual international plan of Cigna Healthcare. It is built in layers:

• Three levels of core cover: Silver, Gold and Platinum. The core is international medical insurance — hospital stays, specialist treatment in hospital, cancer care and in-patient psychiatric care. Platinum carries the highest annual limit, without a fixed cap.
• Four optional modules: International Outpatient, International Medical Evacuation, International Health and Wellbeing, and International Vision and Dental. Each is added separately.
• Area of cover: worldwide excluding the United States, or worldwide including it.
• Deductibles and cost-share. Members choose a deductible, from none upwards, and can add a cost-share percentage with an annual out-of-pocket maximum — the main lever for bringing the premium down.
• Maternity is part of Gold and Platinum once the mother has been insured for twelve months.

The strength of the design is flexibility: a family can buy a high core level with a large deductible for catastrophic protection, or a fuller plan with out-patient and dental for everyday use, and adjust at renewal.

Side by side

Benefit limits, waiting periods and exclusions vary by plan level and are set out in each insurer’s table of benefits. We send the relevant tables with every comparison.

Which suits whom

In practice, the choice usually turns on a handful of facts about the family rather than on the brands.

• A family whose life is in Europe — a home in Cascais or Marbella, work and school in Europe, trips to the US rare — is often well served by Allianz Care with a Europe or worldwide-excluding-US area, with repatriation already built in.
• A family with a foot in the United States — a house in Miami, children at university in Boston, a preference for a particular US hospital — needs worldwide cover including the US, and the cost of that cover is where the two plans differ most for a given profile. Both are worth pricing.
• Someone who wants catastrophic protection only and pays routine care out of pocket will look closely at Cigna Global’s deductible and cost-share options.
• A family planning a child needs to buy the right level early: in both plans maternity is reserved for the higher levels and starts after twelve months of cover.
• A household with a health history — both insurers underwrite on a medical questionnaire and may exclude or load a pre-existing condition. The terms offered for the same history can differ, which is one more reason to apply through a broker who can present both.

Visas, residence and the two countries

An international plan is frequently bought at the moment of moving, and the visa file is part of the decision.

• Portugal. Applicants for residence visas such as the D7 or the D8 must show health cover for their stay. An international plan is commonly used for this, and once resident the family can keep it, add a local plan for day-to-day care, or rely on it alone alongside the public SNS.
• Spain. For the non-lucrative residence visa, consulates commonly require private health insurance from an insurer authorised to operate in Spain, with full cover and no co-payments or waiting periods. Not every IPMI configuration meets that test — deductibles and cost-share, for instance, can be a problem — so the plan has to be set up with the visa in mind, and the consulate’s current requirements checked.

For families who live between the two countries, an international plan has an obvious advantage: one policy, the same cover in Lisbon and in Madrid, and no need to change insurer when the family moves.

A short checklist

• Decide where you want to be treated: Europe, worldwide without the US, or worldwide.
• Choose the core level first, then add out-patient, dental and evacuation as needed.
• Set the deductible deliberately — it is the main lever on the premium.
• If a child is planned, buy a level that includes maternity now: the twelve-month wait starts on day one.
• Disclose the medical history fully; ask how each insurer would treat it before you choose.
• If the plan is for a Spanish visa, configure it for the consulate’s requirements before you buy.

Talk to us

Adler & Rochefort is an insurance intermediary registered with Portugal’s ASF and works from its head office in Lisbon for families in Portugal and Spain. We place both Allianz Care and Cigna Global, configure each for the family’s actual life — where they live, where they travel, where they would want to be treated — and set the two proposals out in writing, with the tables of benefits, so the choice is made on the substance. One adviser stays with the family from the application to the claim. See also our international health cover in Portugal and private health insurance in Spain.

Adler & Rochefort is a commercial brand of Ownizo, Unipessoal Lda., registered with the ASF under no. 425591790/3. General information from an insurance intermediary, not personalised advice; what a policy covers depends on its wording and on the insurer’s acceptance of the risk.