Hi all,

Our situation is so f@cking compicated that I am not sure I will be able to describe it entirely but I'll try.

Part I. Introduction.
Here is the thing - my wife moved from canton Geneva to canton Lausanne in the end of April. She sent some papers to the Office de Population to register herself and as she didn't get any response she assumed it went ok. She took swisscare insurence, received an insurence card + signed contract and started visiting doctors. Two months later she got a letter from Swisscare informing her that she is not registered in canton Lausanne and therefore can't be insured by Swisscare. She called the Office de Population and asked 'how come?'. They said that my wife should have come personally with all required documents intead of sending some papers by post. After 15 minutes of talking with them she learned that even if she came there she would had no right for registration in Lausanne because she must be registered in the same canton as her husband(myself). As a result - these 2 months she was not registered anywhere in Switzerland.

Part 2. Swisscare doesn't care
She called Swisscare and they said that it's not their problem and they will not cover anything. The fact that my wyfe had a signed contract and insurance card didn't matter for them. They proposed to find a new insurance company which will agree to cover all these expencies(they will make a transfer). They also said that it's kind of a regular thing here, which we don't tend to beleive. It's around 3k chf. I don't think there will be many companies who would be happy to take this barden. So the actual questions are:
- is the SwissCare's stand point legitimate in the given circumstamces?
-- if not then what can we do about it?
-- if yes then is it really possible to make this transfer to a new insurance company?
--- if yes then any recommendation regarding which company to contact?
--- if not then what should we do?

Any help is highly appreciated!

Sorry I can't help more, but having moved from Lausanne to Geneve I can tell you that Office de Population Lausanne are real real douche-begs. They could have at least call you to inform you that you are not registered when they received the documents. Lousy people, I had to deal with them believe me I know what I am talking about.

Hopefully somebody else will have a solution or an idea.

So, you live in GE, therefore your insurance is in GE.

As base insurance is now obligatory (wasn't when I moved here, but has been since the mid '90s), they MUST insure you, albeit in GE and not VD.

Therefore, whomever you get to insure you in GE MUST pay the bills, so long as they are covered under the base insurance.

Tom

So can she get Swisscare insurance for Geneva? As she is registered there.

Yeah, now I know that

Tom, Sbrinz, unfortunatly it's not that easy. Here is the second part of the story.
We moved from Geneva together in the end of April. I moved to canton Aargau where I got a job and she moved to Lausanne as I said. We both got deregistered in canton GE in the end of April. I got properly registered in Aargau and what happend with my wife you already know.
We are both non-EU. When we lived in Geneva we both had carte de legitimation (special type of work permit for international organizations). When we left Geneva these cards were given back to the autorities. By that time I already got B permit and we submitted documents for my wife. Even though we didn't have these cards anymore we were allowed to stay in Switzerland for three month after that (though for me it didn't matter since I had The petmit anyway). So "de jure" she was not officially registered in Switzerland during these, already, three months.

You can still get basic health insurance.

You pay the premium for the initial three months and have to cover the deductible that you've chosen and they will reimburse you for what's left of the 3000 CHF.

Indeed.

The supplemental is another thing, but the base should be no problem. It costs the same regardless of canton.

Tom

What I would do is to sort out her registration as soon as possible with a legitimate residency permit and address. Use that info to sign up for any basic health insurance policy, and declare a back-dated time of entry which can be up to 3 months prior, and hopefully it will all work out.

Otherwise, you're paying out of pocket for your health bills. Did swisscare at least refund your premiums because they refused to pay your cover ?

I'm going to ask an important question here - why is your wife not living with you? Have you split or it is because she has a job in/around Lausanne or the kids are in school there?

If she hasn't got a job then she is dependent on you for support and as such the Swiss expect her to be living with you so she must be registered in the same place as you. I would think this is especially so as you are both non-EU citizens. With quotas for permits so tight for non-EU's her stay in this country is totally dependent on being your wife, if she doesn't have a job of her own.

At the moment sorting the insurance out is secondary to getting her registration properly in order.

That is correct as the T&C obviously have been read, understood and accepted as you otherwise would not have signed the document. Right? Swisscare can, based on the T&C's, cancel your subscription if these are not followed at any time. That's why we have contracts with T&C's

At the end of the day, it is up to you to follow up on things and not base anything on assumptions and start blaming others for errors which have been made.

Best of luck.

PS. I'm not having a go at you personally, but speak in general as 99% of all legal binding document's T&C's are not even looked at. This said, contractual statements can't forgo the law in the state in which the contract applies to and therefor not binding even with a signature (as most people don't know the law in detail), but that's a different topic.

Good advice above about getting her registration in order.

I never rush to judgment on these things, because as always we only ever hear one person's version of a story. But I admit to feeling a bit suspicious of this sort of statement: "She sent some papers to the Office de Population to register herself and as she didn't get any response she assumed it went ok".

What were these papers? Would she not expect to receive an updated permit from a new Kanton? Did the 'papers' state that no acknowledgment would be sent back by the Gemeinde? Sorry, but that part of the story didn't quite add up to me.

But good luck, anyway.

As basic health care is obligatory, you shouldn't have any problem getting cover from any of the companies offering it and backdating to the moment you were no longer covered by Swisscare. You should then be able to claim all costs covered by basic health insurance (most things in other words).
I reckon you should be able to claim back the premiums from Swisscare when they weren't supposed to be covering you.

Hello everyone,

I admit it was partially our fault - we should have made sure my wife is registered. It's clear. I don't want to blame someone now I just want to find a way out. Thanks everyone one for the help and have a great weekend!

B.

Swiss Care is not a regular insurer, they exploit some laws to get cheap insurance for students and researchers. Any regular basic health insurance shall cover those expenses AFAIK.

Swisscare covers everything in the basic health insurance that 'regular' providers do, plus some extras. If they did not, the cantons would not accept their cover as sufficient insurance.

Unlike other companies, however, they are not obliged to accept your request for basic insurance.