Starshollow

jsut for better understanding: where are you applying for your citizenship exactly? That too makes a huge difference...   Cheerio  

  Your 3 years of public pension contributions in Germany is worth zip, I am afraid.  Only AFTER you have paid on for 60+ months do you have a valid and irrefutable claim against the Deutsche Rentenversicherung, which only means that by then the Ausländeramt can and will accept this as sufficient proof of existing pension planning/payments.   Therefore you'll need to set up in lieu a private pension plan in accordance with the local requirements.  If you are applying for in Berlin, it has to be a RÜRUP pension plan into which a serious amount of money has to be paid in per plan until you reach retirement age of 67. You do not have to do any back payments now, just start the plan and show that you have started paying into the plan for (in my experience) two-three months. If you are applying somewhere else, it is important to ask what exact form of pension plan with what amount of money invested until age 67 is locally required. If you use a good financial advisor for Expats, they can actually inquire for you and then work out the fitting and compliant pension plans for you.   Cheerio  

I am a bit confused... you write about being a freelancer and then about getting a paycheck..which is usually connected with being an employee? So what is it?   When you are self-employed, your overall initial financial burden is far lower, because you do not have to pay into public pension, unemployment insurance etc. Just taxes and health insurance (public or private whereas employees with even 3k EUR income will always have to pay into public insurance). At the same time, of course, you do not have the benefits later from unemployment insurance when out of work or pension payments when retiring.    And as a self-employed you have at least a chance to write off some expenditure which is also for you personally in some clever means and thus reduce your tax liability even further.  Thus I do not fully understand your complaint, to be perfectly honest. perhaps you can bring a few more details and numbers for better understanding?   Cheerio  

HI there, first you have to figure out, which is the regulatory authority for that. In most German states it is the IHK (International Chamber of Trade and Commerce). But in some states it is the local "Gewerbeamt" Once you have figured that out, you can launch a direct protest to them. Don't hold your breath..but they might do some auditing. Furthermore you can approach the "Ombudsman". He is actually listed in the "Impressum" (Imprint,disclosure) on their website. That will trigger an investigation and might provide some results...   All in all, consumer protection in Germany is unfortunately at the level of some 3rd world countries (and I don't want to insult these countries...sorry )  Good luck, Cheerio  

Well, this is not going to be easy, I am afraid. You are dealing with a Versicherungsmakler - who is not a Versicherungsberater, whatever he/she says. A Versicherungsmakler is already in a very special legal connection with you because by law he is obligated to act in your best interest first and only (TReuhändischer Sachwalter des Kunden according to highest court decisions BGH) A Versicherungsmakler is also allowed according to the licenses and regulation and loads of court decisions to negotiate and arrange fee-based advice with you, as long as it is not connected with normal commission-based advice anyway. I.e. a Versicherungsmakler must not charge you a fee if on top of that he'll receive a commission from the insurance company anyway, as this would create, among other things, a conflict of interest. Your Versicherungsmakler, though, is offering you advice in a field where no commission is going to be paid to him because the goal is to get you into public health insurance. So far so good. And there is no regulation whatsoever about how high a fee he can demand from you. this is stricly an open-ended deal between you and the Versicherungsmakler, i.e. how much are you willing to pay for his services. Take it, renegotiate (if he is willing to negotiate) or leave it.  A true Versicherungsberater is a very rare species. There are only 300 +/- licensed in Germany. They have attorney-like privileges and are forbidden to accept any commission payments whatsoever. Hence they rely entirely on fees, usually based on the same fee-calculation as lawyers in Germany. But just as lawyers are allowed in Germany to arrange an alternative fee based on hourly costs or flat fees instead, though can Versicherungsberater.    Having said all of the above: a fee of around 2.000 EUR sounds plausible and reasonable from my point of view.    Cheerio  

ok, this is a real and fully comprehensive German private health insurance indeed and I can tell you definitly, that it is also fully compliant with § 257 Abs 4 SGB V.      You'll just need to ask them to send you an "ARbeitgeberbescheinigung", because that particular document will then contain all this confirmation.   Cheerio  

That does not sound like a real (!) private German health insurance, I am afraid. Both their inability to send you the confirmation in accordance with § 257 Abs 4 SGB V and the info that there is another yearly renewal starting in May are clear signs that this is a German Expat-insurance (Hanse-Merkur, CareConcept, Mawista or something like that ? ) and not a fully comprehensive German private health insurance. Perhaps you can let us know the exact name of the health insurance plan first ? That way you can get better answers.    Cheerio  

  Shouldn't whoever set you up with the RIESTER pension plans be the one to answer this for you? Or did you set it up yourself online/directly ?   Not sure about your decision to stop/cancel this, but anyway: if you signed up with a commission-based plan, then yes, you will lose around 30% of what you paid in yourself due to the costs for sales and administration.  and of course also the government subsidy.   Cheerio  

with a 22-year plan, all your contributions from the first 23 months went entirely into fees, mostly for the commissions paid out to the sales-people (I utterly reject to call them "financial advisors" because in most cases they are totally lacking even the most rudimentary professional qualification, not to mention the total lack of professional ethics).   So you basically - if you look at the total planned duration - you'll start with a minus of around 10% that you'll have to recuperate before you'll start to make any profit or yield with this plan. Since in my experience the sales-people then get back to the clients every couple of months with the recommendation to shift (sell and buy a-new) their investment funds or simply recommend overly expensive actively managed fund and very high-priced (and risky) derivatives like autocallable notes, it will be hard to make any profit anyway. This is why so many "clients" find out after some years, that despite growing stock markets etc their investment/pension plan has not even broken even yet.   IMO - unless you'll get in writing the exact amount of bonus-payments you can expect if you stay in the plan - it is better to cut your losses and get out of these money-traps and get yourself a decent and really qualified advisor to set you up either with a REAL pension plan or, if such a pension plan is actually not in your best interest, a simple investment portfolio based on passive investment funds like ETFs or funds from Dimensional (which are also passive investment funds, but with a bit of a science-based twist, but still significantly lower in costs than those expensive actively-managed investment funds).   Cheerio  

No, any German (and AFAIK also all EU-citizen) have no right to claim back any contributions to GErman state/public pension whatsoever. it is not anything you needed to apply or ask for, it is a matter of law and citizenship.  You'll have an irrefutable claim for your public pension payouts when you reach retirement age. That's about it.  Cheerio  

not sure if these dates are correct? Did you start in 2007 or in 2017 ? If you did start in 2007, there is no reason or need to continue paying into the plan, nor can they charge you for your plan any further...unless in the last 2 years or so you agreed to an increase in the monthly contributions?   Be that as it may: if you have a chance to recuperate the lost money will mostly depend on two things in my experience from dealing with a large number of "victims": 1) that you can prove that the sales to you violated local consumer protection laws (i.e. that the plan was ill-advised to be sold to you, the salesperson was not disclosing all relevant information as required by local laws and regulations and that the plan was not even allowed/licensed to be offered and sold to you in your country of residence for lack of registration/licensing of the plan under local laws and regulations) 2) your personal persistence and how far and long you are prepared to go in order to get your money back.   Usually, your chances are best if the sales-organization that was responsible for selling you this was/is still active in your country of residence. Because they will not like this to become public or them getting audited by the local regulatory authorities. But you have to take a stand and keep willing to threaten them with exposure, legal steps and particularly convince them, that you take this to the end with a lot of publicity involved thru Social Media. Some folks I know who live in Africa even started their own website (off-line since their settlement) in order to expose the illegalities of the sales-company etc and that, after some time and a lot of threatening legal letters and all, convinced the company to settle with them in full. But the WILL try to brush you off, scare you off and a lot of things more...you have to be prepared for that.    Cheerio  

hi there - sorry, am fully booked out for the rest of the day. You can send me a message by PM here or thru the contact form  of our website. BVF GmbH is an insurance broker. They have a particularily strong need to demonstrate how they advised you in YOUR best interest. And provide notes to this regards.  With the other broker company: since you mentioned that you received some papers (by email?) to sign and then returned them again signed, you should have, IMO, a 14-days cooling-off period, i.e. the right to step back from the contract. Best would be to send them a new email, followed by a registered letter, that you signed this contract in error, assuming they were Versicherungsberater. You just learned that they are only Versicherungsmakler and you don't see how they can adequately represent you against the other broker and the insurance company. therefore you'll make use of your right to "Widerruf" the contract forthwith.   Cheerio  

  ok, the fact that you have been taken advantage off is, sadly enough, a re-occurring theme here on Toytown.  It is unfortunately very easy  to trick someone who does not know the lingo nor the insurance sales systems in Germany and some people have no ethics whatsoever.  You are not alone in this abysmal experience, but that won't really help you, I fear...   Ok, here is what you need to do: 1. find out definitely if the lady who sold you the insurance is an insurance agent (tied-agent or multi-tied agent) or an insurance broker because your legal position differs vastly depending on what status she has.  2. Don't continue to deal with this second intermediary any further. This is an insurance broker and yes, he can do some insuance consulting work for a fee, but he is not an insurance consultant (Versicherungsberater). The latter kind of insurance advisors are a rare thing n Germany but very important for you because they do have a professional status which puts them on par with solicitors/lawyers in many ways. The only thing the Versicherungsberater can't do for you is present you in court, but other than that, he has many legal rights in representing you that an insurance broker does not have. Since you are facing dire consequences here, I would definitlly not recommend using another broker-colleague for this kind of job but only an Versicherungsberater. I can tell you one or two where we have a good experience from our clients when they needed such services.    The Versicherungsberater will first test what kind of legal status the insurance selling lady had or has. Plus certain documents she is required to have and to provide, which include, for instance, a documentation of the advice process.  This will be crucial in order to be able to see if you have any chances against her in case of this going to court. Since you have nothing in writing that you informed her about your medical condition, it will be kinda hard to prove that she knowingly misled you and the insurance company. But still, since you had been with public insurance beforehand for some time, due dilligence may well have required here to get a statement from your public insurance for the past years to see, what kind of treatments you received. Filling out all questions for health with NO is usually already a bad sign and hints to malpractice IMO. But this is something the Versicherungsberater can take care of better than I can describe here.   So, long story short. Forget about the second guy and his fee of 2.000 EUR plus VAT - he simply is not qualified like a Versicherungsberater and should not meddle in such things. Get yourself a good Versicherungsberater NOW and let him or her analyze your situation properly and help you to get out of this mess.   Cheerio  

@msimos: there are three different kinds of insurance intermediaries in Germans with very different roles, legal positions (i.e. rights and responsibilities) and it's worth knowing the difference in order to make sure you understand with whom you deal in a given situation. Check out our info-Video on YouTube here: Insurance agents, insurance brokers and insurance consultants in Germany   an insurance agent (and many are so-called multi-tied agents even) is not necessarily bad for a client and a broker not necessarily good. Individual ethics and professionalism still play an important role. Having said that: the legal situations is very different. If you get bad advice from an insurance agent, you'll have more or less to prove how and why the advice was indeed malpractice. A broker is required by law and a large number of high-court decisions in Germany to act as a fiduciary for the client, he is acting as a "treuhänderischer Sachwalter der Kundeninteressen" as the federal high court stated. Therefore the broker has to prove that the advice given was in your best interest...a very different legal situation and a much higher liability on the side of the broker. Of course, there are also the Versicherungsberater (insurance consultants) who work entirely fee-based and just advise you in finding the best/most suitable insurance for you. You'll then need to go out to purchase it yourself, but based on strictly independent advice.    Cheerio  

HI there,  with some insurances, what you pay is what you get... therefore you don't want to go "cheap" on the 3rd party liability insurance, especially since the difference between a real cheap-one (with below-standard basic coverage and many important features missing in coverage) and a really good one is only 30-40 EUR per year. YEAR - as in perhaps 3 EUR and change per month. :-)   Furthermore: yes, you can sign up for such an insurance on internet platforms.  However, then you'll have to deal with the insurance company yourself in case of you needing to file a claim. Which is no fun at all.  Especially if you are not fluent in German-style insurance lingo.   My advice: go to a respected insurance broker (and not an agent!!!) who can and will get you the best from the market. Meaning from the very good insurance plans with top-coverage the one where you get the most for your money. The insurance will then cost you around 60-80 EUR per year, so a bit more than what you stated above. But it will make a huge difference in what is covered (and yes, it does not make much difference if the coverage amount is 10 or 50 Million, but certain areas of coverage can make an important difference, read more about what is really important and essential in English here: https://www.crcie.com/insurance/3rd-party-liability/ ) and at the same time, you'll have the full support from the insurance broker in case you ever need to use your insurance...for free.   another option I would be unfair not to mention are some of the very new insurtec start-ups which claim to offer totally online-based services for just this kind of insurance. I am still a bit skeptical about this, as it has not been means-tested much and long-enough to offer convincing data and I am not going to have my clients play guinea-pigs for Hipsters trying to get in a few millions worth of investor grants with half-baked insurance solutions. But if you are into hip new app-based insurance solution, ONE might be an interesting alternative for you. https://www.one-insurance.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=generic&gclid=Cj0KCQjw9JzoBRDjARIsAGcdIDUPU0Jh61B-fD8KJnIYNrz6RBdmM2YOc-RnXJBBSYE4QJBCCmdUPXwaAiKPEALw_wcB   Cheerio