Debs, I think I have to echo Uncle Max's comments. You can also try to look at the messages in the insurance section. Plenty of useful info there. I'm going to go ahead and adjust the title of this thread to "Seeking temporary health insurance cover". I think that's much more descriptive than "Health insurance".

But in any case, why bother with cover for just a few months, if it's something temporary you are after then you'll likely be covered by whatever travel insurance you have or the health insurance from the country you're from.

If you have been living in Switzerland without insurance for an extended period of time (which is illegal) then yes, you'll often have to pay your premiums back to the time you arrived in Switzerland. This isn't as unfair as it sounds, you still would have been covered if you got sick, even if you hadn't organised the insurance. This exact situation and was already covered in another thread, and I gave the same answer there as well.

Mark