Health insurance on going part-time

At present I am in full time employment and I have private medical insurance. From January 2008 I will work part-time for the same employer but my pay will reduce below the threshold for private health insurance. My important - for me! - question is, as I'm presently privately insured, can I stay privately insured or do I have to change to the compulsory scheme?

For those who have read my previous posts about Arbeitslosengeld on taking voluntary redundancy, my situation has now changed due to the fact that my employer has agreed to give me a part-time contract - but only after I had submitted my notice!

Thanks in advance

A good starting point would be to ask your current insurers...

It's Sunday ...just wondered if anyone knew, that's all

Cruiser: hate to be the bearer of bad news but if your gross salary gets below the threshold, you will automatically and compulsorily be insured at the public insurance of your choice (just make sure that you tell your employer what your choice is before he signs you up like many do with the AOK which is very, very expensive in comparison). There is no leeway here at all for you or the employer. To make things worse: even if you would get a pay-raise again soon or change to another job with a salary in excess of the threshold, you would still be bound to the public insurance for another new three conseecutive years since the chain of years of your salary being above the threshold is broken. This is a really shitty new regulation and I wonder if it will survive long after the next election in 2009 (if the current governement-coalition stays together so long) but it is the rule right now and you got to live with it.

My recommendation would be for you to take the IKK DIREKT because it is most likely the least expensive public insurance for you to choose, but you might want to check the monthly FINANZTEST magazine where they allways have a list of least expensive public health insurance for each "Bundesland". Only if you have any ongoing medical treatment or need a lot of personal assistance in your day-to-day life with regards to your health should you rather try to take a more expensive public health insurance with more local offices and services, TKK comes to mind there as being recommended by many people.

Cheerio

Thanks very much Starshollow, even though your information is not what I was hoping for!

cruiser

Is this only the case if your salary actually falls, or is it also the case if your above the salary threshold and privately insured, and they raise the threshhold above your salary? Do you then get sucked back into the public system?
Similarly, what happens if you get your salary above the threshold and then have to wait the three years (the situation I'm now in), but in the meantime they increase the threshold faster than your salary increases, and at some point your salary is below the threshold (even if temporarily)? Hopefully I'm far enough above for this not to happen but I'm curious - do you then have to start again with the three years when once your salary is once more above the above the threshold?

I too am reducing to part-time. So if I understand right, as long as I'm still employed in some form, my current public Insurance scheme continues to run without further requirements from me?

Anyone know what happens If i then picked up some part-time work for another employer?

MunichMag: sorry, must have missed your posting in Nov., just noticed it now. Here is the answer: yes, if during your waiting period to fullfill the three consecutive years over the threshold you fall below the threshold again, you will have first to crawl back above and then wait a new three years, insane as it may sound. The keyword in the law here is three "consecutive" years.

A major riks lies actually in the possiblity that when changing jobs you could be 1-2 month without gross salary (due to moving or anything like that) and so even if all other 10 monthly salaries before and after the interruption are in excess of the monthly threshold- if you fail to meat the total yearly income threshold through the lack of some monthly salaries, you are still considered to be below the threshold and the game starts all over for three years.

Howard M: if you have been publicly insured before the reduction to part-time, nothing changes with regards to the insurance except your monthly deductions will of course decline in line with the reduction of your gross salary. Your second question I can not answer for certain, though. If your other work is based on a contract/freelancing, than this should not change anything on the insurance side costwise, but if is another employment on salary I would assume that you will receive additional dedcutions from this pay for health insurance, pension etc as well. But here I am not totally sure and would hope that someone else from the TT-crowd can answer that.

Cheerio