Hi, We are in Geneva and need to sign up for Health Insurance, does anyone know of a health insurance company that provides information in English. Also we are only intending to stay in Switzerland for another 3 or 4 months, does anyone provide temporary cover, if we sign up with a normal company are we liable for a whole year when we leave?

On Comparis you can compare the prices for the different health insurances. (Change to english on the top right)

I don't know how it will work since you're only gonna be here for a few months. Usually you're bound to the contract with your insurance and the contract can only be terminated twice a year...end of november and end of march (but only for certain insurance types)

Debs - look on the search option, top right on your menu bar. Plenty info there!

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

Thanks for the info guys. We have been here just over three months now, so really need to get the insurance sorted. We have asked the authorities if we can have international health insurance (which we are happy to get as much cheaper and we could then take with us) but they said no it has to be a swiss organisation. However no swiss health company seems to offer temporary health insurance - it all seems very difficult.

Actually it's not difficult at all. If you are leaving the country in a few months you simply cancel the insurance when you leave. If you de-register you simply inform the insurance company that you are leaving Switzerland - send them proof that you have deregistered and your policy is cancelled pretty quickly.

You say no Swiss company offers this? Have you actually spoken to any of the insurance companies? If you ask them how to cancel if you leave the country I'm pretty sure they will all tell you exactly what I've said above.

I don't really see the difficulty here?

The question is whether you stay until January. If you leave beforehand, you just sign up now and pay until December. (You do have to terminate, check comparis.ch how to do that, they have standard letters as well).

Not strictly correct. You pay month by month, and leaving the country means you can cancel anytime (as per post directly above yours). I know because I've done it.

mark you are certainly right but some companies need Abmeldung von der Gemeinde (Einwohnerkontrolle), too. I suppose.
Arek

[Moderator note: the German words in this post translate at deregistration from the community (from resident control department) - please provide translations for non-obvious, non-English terms in future]

Yes, Mark you are right. That is good for all of us. Writing a language that everybody does understand.

Abmeldung means deregistration
von der Gemeinde means from the community
Einwohnerkontrolle means resident control department

Have nice weekend

Arek Kasprowski

thanks mark for your information even i had the same doubt similar to Debs...



health insurance tx