Starting a new job and getting health insurance

Thanks for the fast response. I had a feeling that might be the case.

It's still there but it got merged with an existing thread: what etc.'s initial post on health insurance.

Edit: Where you can now find your second try as well.

Does anyone ever read the WIKI on Health insurance (2007 update) here at TT? It gives the answer to the problem above and many other problems regarding health insurance...

Cheerio

Somebody mentioned Kalwdija Pongracic as a broker who can give you some advice re the insurance. She just left my flat, and I really need to write these few lines here. The woman is great!!!
She is an independent broker. I have had a lot of problems with TK since I became free-lancer.The best offer I got from them was almost 300 euros a month for a basic insurance. I called TK many times, sent tones of letters, but they kept their price, without any explanation.
I finally got Klawdija's number from a friend who is also very satisfied with the insurance Klawdija chose for her. She came this morning, showed me all types of insurances on her laptop, explaining what I get for the money each insurance asks for. She even called TK to cancel my contract and to explain the reason why I wanted to quit. When she was about to start making a new contract with the insurance I chose, a person from TK called offering me a new price, 90 euros less then the original offer!!!
It is now up to me to decide how much I want to pay for her advise, as there is no fix price. But I do not mind, as my nightmare is finally over.
She speaks some English, but she explains everything very well in German, even intermediate German speaking person would be able to understand it.
She is also an adviser for the other types of insurances as well as for the money saving options, so if you have a headache because of the German insurance system, I am sure she can help you.

Klawdija Pongracic
0173/2307441
bivi-muenchen@t-online.de

This is just another excellent example why people should indeed get themselves independent insurance advice (and according to your writing, Kalwdija is an independent advisor and not an insurance agent, right?). Save yourself troubles and headaches and rude treatment from bored/service-unfriendly German staff and select out from different options properly explained by and independent advisor... Good to know that there are more out there willing to do a good unbiased job!

And if you need someone to help you in English, well you know where to click ;-)

Cheerio

A friend of mine said that his sister lives in Germany and that she has kept her US Citizenship... And that she is not eligible to get insurance. He said I need to look into it. Because if I move then I might not get insurance even if I find a full time job... He said she pays taxes too.

Is he just misinformed?

Please send me a message...

for starters: pls check the very informative WIKI on health insurance here on Toytown (pls use 2007 version!) There you'll find a lot of basic information which will show you that the friend is definetly missinformed - if he would be speaking about public health insurance and if the sister was without employment/job, he might be right. What kind of insurance you are eligible for and what your options are is depending on a number of factors such as occupational status, age, gender, health conditon, coming allone or with family and children etc... Thus try to figure out the basics in the WIKI first and if you then have specific questions, be happy to help you further.

Cheerio

Starshollow,

Thanks for the info. I was a little worried. I will definitely read the WIKI page.

K.

Hi,

I am going to get insurance sorted on Monday as I have started a new job, need to know what all I would need to bring with me, documents or whatever??

Thanks

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assuming that you are talking about health insurance and, whats more, assuming that you are talking about public health insurance coming compulsorily with your new job and that this job means employment in Germany: you need to bring nothing, just tell your boss or HRM people with which public insurance to sign you up. this is usually enough.

Should any of the qualifiers above however not apply to you (i.e. not public health insurance, not in employment etc) it would be helpful if you could be somewhat clearer in your questions? maybe a short read-through of the WIKI here on TT (2007 version) would help you understand what others need to know from you in order to give you adequate replies...

Cheerio

ah apologies for my lack of detail, yeah public health insurance,you've answered my question,thats great,thanks

no prob. just make sure that they don't sign you up with AOK or the likes, this would cost you easily 30-50 EUR more from your own pay each month for not a really different/better service. 95% of the coverage of public health insurance is regulated by law and hence the same with all insurances. if you really want better service, get yourself a private add-on insurance on top of your public one instead.
also make sure that you have a sufficient travel health insurance in effect when traveling outside Germany and particularily when traveling outside the EU.

Cheerio and good luck with the new job

Hi

Just to add to this thread another question.

My husband and I are both moving to Germany. Hubby won't be working. Does that mean he is entitled to Health Insurnace from my contributions or will he need some separate cover?

Thanks

Fibi

You see? we told you you would need help again, unfortunately you pissed off already some people that might help you. Fortunately you still did not piss off the people who know about insurances.

PS. Yes, most probably your husband can get insurance through you and you will pay for it.

Krieg if you want to chase me around all day looking at my posts - feel quite free. I didn't piss off anyone actually - you took the liberty to be pissed off at something I said/did/didn't do - your decision - fine by me.

But - on the other hand, I thank you for the information. Very helpful indeed.

Oh go ahead, continue pissing off people that actually can help you in your new life.

PS. If your husband is not working be sure to get the correct tax card because there is a big difference.

Oh come on Kreig - you give such good advice (well - some of the time...!)- I am not pissing anyone off it's just that people have got pissed off for some weird reason because I posted a question which had been asked before apparantly. Big wow. Not the first, won't be the last. I am actually really nice...I can't really be pissing you off too much or you wouldn't be giving me the good advice would you?

You are not pissing ME off, I have a very thick skin, as you see, I am still replying to your posts with information that might help you. But not everyone thinks like me, other posters that could eventually help you will not do it if you treat them like you did in your Internet Provider thread. It is obvious if you piss off people that could help you it is YOUR lost, not ours.

PS. Nobody is "chasing you around", this is a forum and people read what other people say and sometimes people reply.
PPS. Your next decision would be private vs public health insurance, if you still did not decide it.

must have missed the "pissing off" somehow...

Fibi: if you are insured with public health insurance your husband without income of more then 4oo EUR/month can be insured with your public-health-family-insurance at no extra costs. if you chose private health insurance, you and he both need individual insurance policies and both have to be paid for. If you go for either and what will work for both of you better now and later is a complicated issue and depends on a large number of parameters. You might want to involve an independent advisor for this decision. For more info check the WIKI about health insurance here on Toytown (2007 version) or check for info at our website www.crcie.com

Cheerio

I was un der the impression that if I have an income less than a certain amount - that I HAVE to have public Health insurance - I do not have a choice.

Deciding public vs private is really very important and depending on what you decide you might be stuck forever (or at least it would be very difficult to change) and you might regret it. Since you are just coming to the country and you seem not to know a lot about it, I suggest you get an advisor. Here in TT you will find a couple of them that speak English and they have good reputation.

And spend the time reading threads about it and learning for the experience and mistakes from others.

As a short version, public is expensive but safer, private is cheaper but risky. Of course this might not apply always and your mileage could be totally different.

correct - "Pflichtversichert" (compulsory insurance). From memory, the limit is ~48000€/year.

Note that this only applies to employees - self-employed, freelancers, Beamte and so on do not have to take public health insurance whatever their income.

Even if you are in the public insurance, you will still have to choose your own provider, and at the minute they all take a different % of your income (from start of 2009 they will all take the same but will be allowed to return some as "bonuses" to members if they want to - I think IKK Direkt at least have promised to do this, probably others have too).

OK - yep I thought that was the case. I will be employed and my employer is arranging all this for me and since I am under the earnings threashold then I guess I don't really have a decision to make. Thanks for the advice.

I think you are failing at reading the answers.

You choose your provider, not your employer.

Fibi: if you don't tell your employer your choice, he will by default sign you up with AOK most likely, which is a very expensive selection for you and can easily cost you 20-50 EUR more each month for no really different coverage. Therefore, as KRIEG points out correctly, make sure you chose- unless money is not relevant for you, of course

Cheerio

Hi all,

This is my first post, so bare with me: it’s a long-un. I’m about to start my first position after graduating university this summer. As such, I had gathered from these boards I have to take a state policy even though I’m earning just over €50k p/a .

When I mentioned this to a couple of my future German colleagues they disagreed and put me in touch with the broker at work (sorry Starshollow, but she was just down the stairs). She suggested that she might be able get me onto a private policy since she said that if you’ve had a private insurance policy in your home (EU) country for 3 years then you can just jump straight into a German private policy (I wasn’t aware of this).

The leap of faith she then wants to make is that the NHS in the UK counts like health insurance (), and so we can just pretend that I’m just moving from one insurance policy to another. I would have corrected her on that except for the fact that she’s a Brit and should understand what the NHS is. She seemed to think the only problem might be “getting it past Newcastle� (I think that’s where our HR/personel department is).

My question is what have I got to lose? If I go apply for a private policy and “Newcastle� doesn’t like it then I can quickly sign up for a state policy. If they let me through then I’m saving myself €100/month and getting better policy cover (I’m a single male, not planning to stay for more than a few years)... are there any draw backs associated if someone in the system “found out� later? My main worry is that I would find myself uninsured/committing fraud .

Looking forward to your answers!

SS

From my reading of a couple of threads on this, I think it is very difficult to switch from private back to state insurance.

i read tons of materials about insurance and i'm still not sure what to do:
i'm single, 28, with spouse (30), agreed to 48 000 job. I was insured by public heatlth system in my home country. Is it possible that i am eligible for private insurance?

And if not, do my spouse has to be my wife to have also insurance through public system? i mean, is it the only option to insure her?

also, does it matter what privider will i choose if it will be all the same on 2009?

i read really like 50 pages about insurance, and i think i know less than when i started reading.

If you want to insure your wife as well (and she is not working), you are almost certainly going to get a better deal on the public system because she will be covered for free. I would say forget private insurance.

juice99: if you are eligible at all for private health insurance depends on 1) your current gross salary and 2) on your yearly gross salary for the last 3 years either within or outside Germany. You can find the relevant threshold values for the preceding years here: http://www.crcie.com/pageID_5743775.html

If your current salary is not higher then 48 k, you are already missing the first threshold for current salary and you would not be eligible for private health insurance anyway. If your gross salary exceed the current threshold, you would still need to fulfill the thresholds for the years 2007-2005. If you don't, then again your are not (yet) eligible for public health insurance.

Public health insurance offers family coverage, but family in the legal sense means married for the spouse indeed, a partner who is not married to you will need individual insurance coverage.

Cheerio

seansheep: According to everything I know, the other brokers interpretation of the law/rules to allow you to opt out from public health insurance is wrong. What counts is if your gross salary (and it is salary, not income from other sources) in the past three years exceeded the relevant thresholds for the past 3 years. Now according to your post, you miss actually both requirements for opting out:
1) since you start in the middle of the year with your job, your total salary for this year will not exceed 48.500.- EUR - hence not opting out allowed
2) since you did not have a job before, you can not prove exceeding the thresholds in past 3 years, again the result is: no opting out.

That bogus thing about declaring NHS to be a "private health insurance" for the past does not cut the cake.

Having said that: you wanted to know what your risks are if you follow the recommended path. Well, basically it is your employer (according to the regulations/interpretations of the law published by the "Spitzenverbände der Krankenkassen" last year) who has to decide if you are eligble for private health insurance or not. He has to collect the required proof from you and put it in your personal files in case anyone official ever checks and challenges the decision (which I must admit I myself find unlikely to happen). Therefore, if your boss or HRM folks are content to sign you up with private health insurance, I would say go for it. But make sure that you guys compute the cost difference between private and public health insurance and that you put away your share of saved money because if at one point in the near or far future someone would indeed challenge the decision, than most likely the private health insurance will be cancelled backwards (with all payments made to be reimbursed in each direction, I guess) and you and the company would have to pay also the due public health insurance costs from the past on.
You would not find yourself uninsured at any point. The only other risk I could see appart from having to pay all the premiums from the past if being detected is that: if you have received treatment in the meantime under the coverage of the private health insurance and this treatment would not have been covered fully or partly by public health insurance - in this case you might be stuck with paying some health bills out of your pocket later.

Hope this helps you to understand your situation. my gut--feeling says: go for it! but the cautious advisor in me sees too many angles uncovered to actually recommend you going with private health insurance under these circumstances.

Cheerio

Thanks Starshollow,

I was thinking of putting the money I save into my pension, but in light of this I think I'll keep it somewhere I can get to it, just in case. My main concern was that I could be commiting fraud, so thanks for clearing that up.

Regarding having to back-pay the difference between private/state treatment, would my broker have some sort of insurance against that since I am doing it upon their advice? I'm never quite clear on how much legal onus I can put on a brokers advice, especially with all the disclaimers using uber-compounded German words

Many thanks,

SS

seansheep: the main question would be in this case, who is really liable for the payments to public health insurance if the problem should arise (once again I think it is not very likely, though)?

In my opinion it would be your employer first, since he has to decide if you'll get private health insurance or not. Second in line might be the broker. You should of course get the whole thing, how and why she recommends the private insurance into writing (he/she is legally obligate to do that anyway) while at the same time you can inquiry (he/she has to disclose this information) what kind of liability insurance the broker has in place.

Cheerio

Kreig - I don't mind - if my employer has some health insurer in mind then that's fine by me. Why make life difficult?

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I think that it is probably the case that I will end up playing slightly more by going with my employers choice. Of course value for money is important but at least to start off with I think this is the simpler way. Hopefully when I find out more about it I can check out other options. Thanks again.

Let's see. You want to buy tickets for Hertha Berlin vs Liverpool. There are two shops selling the tickets, one charges you 50 Euro per ticket and the other one 40 Euro. Both of them are located in the same street and offer the very same tickets. I tell you, go and buy the tickets in the more expensive shop because I always buy from there. You already know you can buy the same tickets for cheaper in the other shop. What do you do?

Krieg: I would think that for women an example with shoes and shoe-shop would work better... but I was scratching my head just like you at the non-challence with which Fibi is throwing away several hundreds worth of EUR like this. I myself would rather save the money and invest it... even in shoes...

Cheerio

Thanks for the advice Starshollow. I filled out the forms with the broker yesterday, she acknowledged that there might be some problems getting it past HR, but since it would save me (and my employer) over €1000 pa there didn't seem to be much to lose (after the advice here) ... fingers crossed

Hi all,

I have read through many of the posts but have yet to see something similar to my particular situation. I have recently been offered a job here in Germany but first I need to get a work permit. I have everything in order except for my Health Insurance.

Granted, I have not been to the Auslanderbehoerde to ask questions yet but all of my calls have been handled quite bureaucratically with few answers and lots of transferring. I would like to know if:

1) To apply for my work visa I should obtain private insurance until my permit is granted and I can start work, at which time I will be signed up into the state system by my employer?

OR

2) Does that fact that I will get health insurance when my work permit is granted count towards the application process?

Thanks for any help!!

while I can not say that I am an expert on residence/work permits, my reading of the situation is this:
1) if the job your are being offered is employment with gross salary and all, then it will most likely come with compulsory public health insurance anyway (unless you fulfill the two requirements for being allowed to opt out from public health insurance about which you can read more here: http://www.crcie.com/pageID_5743775.html
In this case it would not make much sense to sign on any other health insurance beforehand because you'd either have to cancel it or, if it is a full year contract, you'll have to pay double for a while. So the first questions is, will you be an employee according to German laws or regulation or will you be employed by a foreign company outside of German legislation and therefore considered to be a freelancer in Germany from the side of the German authorities? if the first is the case, then you should be able to get your permit with a travel-health insurance to cover you until the compulsory German health insurance kicks in.
2) if the latter is the case, then indeed you'll need to set up health insurance yourself beforehand. You might be eligible for public health insurance (if you are has been discussed at length in other threads already) but certainly you can apply for private German or private international health insurances or some special Expat health insurance for a limited duration.

Therefore you'll need to specifiy now your future legal status of occupation in Germany and then we can tell you what insurance you'll need. Basically you'll need assistance form an independent broker to guide you through the health insurance jungle of Germany...

Cheerio

I am currently uninsured (I know, don't throw rocks at me), because I cancelled my insurance that was based abroad and had trouble finding insurance through a company here because I was unemployed (though not officially, or claiming benefits.) Well, now I'm employed, and I'm pretty sure I can get insurance through the state but I have NO idea how to set that up or anything. My new job is wanting my versicherungsnummer and I dont' have one...eek help.

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Search in the little box on the top. Plenty of info.

I fear, however, that they want your sozialversicherungsnummer, not your health insurance number.

No they asked for the health insurance AND the sozialversicherungsnummer (which I also dont' have because I've been self employed my entire time here up until this point.)

I searched it and found nothing of use to what I'm looking for but thanks for the handy little tip.

in most companies the HRM folks will actually set you up with the public health insurance of your choice. If you want to chose the one with the best reputation/rating, you might want to consider TKK, if you want to go for one of the least expensive, try IKK DIREKT. As far as I know, TKK has licenced Mike Woodiwiss to sign on Expats, you might want to contact him, he is advertising here on TT with his company SPECTRUM (check the adds). FOr IKK DIREKT you have to contact them by email or phone and they'll set you up...

Cheerio

I will be moving to Berlin from the States in April '09 and I am looking for suggestions regarding health insurance. I know I need it and it's quite a big deal with the German government. I'm looking for good coverage at a reasonable price. I am a 34 yr old male and, therefore, I only go to the Dr when something is either broken or REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE!

Any guidance/experiences you may have had will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers-
Kevin

Topics merged by admin

Kevin: before somebody from the Toytown crowd tells you this in unfriendly words (which sometimes happen when the same questions pop up again and again and the person asking has obviously not even tried to check what information is already available here on Toytown): use the search engine here on Toytown and the WIKI on Toytown for health insurance (2007 version) in order to understand your situation better - because from your question it becomes obvious that you have not even started to read into how the system works differently from what you know in the US. You can also check on our website here : http://www.crcie.com/pageID_5742682.html

as you will find out by doing some research, it depends entirely on your occupational status and income situation when coming to Germany for what kind of insurance you will be eligible. Unless you have figured that out, nobody will be able to help you because the variables are simply to many to contemplate...

of course, if you start getting headaches when having read through the first pieces of info (like many do, you are not alone in that, trust me): you could also use the assistance of an independent broker to ask you the right questions and then figure out the best solution for you...

Cheerio

I have a job offer which will be ready to go within a week...and came across a small snag, no German health insurance (I currently have Expat coverage via the UK). Where does one go for health insurance in Bayern (preferably English speaking)?

Topics merged by admin

public or private health insurance?

Cheerio