What happens when you lose your Japanese health insurance card

I recently had the experience of losing my Japanese health insurance card so I would like to walk you through what you should do in that case and how to get a new card when your insurance is managed by your employer.

Go to the Police

If you can’t find your health insurance card the first thing you should do is inform the local police station. You can file a missing item report there. This can come in handy if someone found the card and used it pretending to be you. Don’t forget that a lot of places in Japan accept a health insurance card as ID so it is not only useful for going to a doctor. Someone might use the card to borrow money from shady places in your name.

Also, police will inform you if the card was found and delivered to the police station.

Inform your company

In order to get a new Japanese health insurance card, you have to inform the person or department in your company that is responsible for such procedures. You will be asked to fill out a form to request a new card and they should take care of the rest.

After 1 to 2 weeks a new insurance card should be ready for you.

Going to the doctor in Japan without a health insurance card

Even though, at this point, you don’t have a health insurance card you are still insured and can still go doctors and hospitals in Japan.  It might be the case though that you have to pay the whole treatment fee out of your pocket, initially. You can then go back and claim a refund on the 70% of the costs that the insurance covers once you have a new card. So, you might want to take some extra cash along with you to the medical facility and make sure to keep the receipts as you might need them to claim the refund.

If you have been to a hospital earlier in the same month, you should be fine as you only have to show your health insurance card once a month.

If your hospital visit is not urgent, you can also ask your company to issue a document which proves that you are insured for the time being. With this you only have to pay the usual 30%.

Other things to think about

If you use your Japanese health insurance card as an ID a lot, make sure you have some other document ready in the meantime. As a foreigner you should also have your residence card, so this should not be a problem.

If you ever find your old health insurance card, you are requested to return it.