Since I am not a foreign student (well I am foreign, but not a student) this is of no benefit to me. But it does seem like an excellent deal if you are a foreign student studying in Switzerland.

http://www.tradiconsult.com/

Their rate is 960/year - which works out at about 80 francs per month - far less than any other insurance offer!! This company is also not listed in comparis and they seem to have full cover.

If you are studying at a Swiss school or university you might be able to save yourself a fortune!

Mark

Hi Mark,

Yes very cheap but have you checked out BUPA International Lifeline Gold? They can offer a tailored solution for Switzerland for anyone including people like you for less than CHF1K per year... Maybe its worth a call.

Regards

Richard

Hello I'm Barry,

I have just an information for the insurance TradiConsult. Much of my friends and me, we had lots of problems with this company.

TradiConsult has now problems with the authorities, with the ombusmann (a friend of me had lots of problems with the law), problems when the company send the bills (3 months after the end of the contract), I have never received the insurance card... and much other problems.I am really irritated against this company and when i call them, there are very aggressive !!!

I have now change by an other company : SWISSCARE. Lots of my friends in Zurich, they change for SWISSCARE. The application procedure was very fast and the contract, card and documents was very professionnal. The full procedure has take only 2 days.

The premium of this company is practically the same one : CHF 495 for 6 months but the franchise is CHF 300 for people between 16 - 40 ans.

So I can advise this insurance for all foreign students in Switzerland.

You can visit : www.swisscare.ch

Regards.

Hi Barry,

I see you are new so welcome. I am not sure if you know of other companies that are offering "special" rates to people who are not students but if you are then we would all be interested to hear about them.

Regards

Richard

Hi Richard,

Unfortunately I dont have other informations for health insurance. But if you surf on google, you can find lots of quote for specials insurances.

Dear Mark - Visit http://www.swisscare.ch lots of student friends on the ETH Zürich and EPFL Lausanne choose this company after bad experience with TradiConsult. The premium is CHF 495.- / 6 months or calculated monthly CHF 82.50 (littel bit much but 200% better)

@Barry - thanks for that info - it doesn't help me as I'm not a student, but I'm sure others will find it useful

@Richard - I checked out BUPA a while ago, but they told me that the gold level was the only one that would be accepted for Switzerland, but that it was not approved by Kanton Zurich. That was not to say that it wouldn't be approved, it was just that nobody had tried. I had heard tales of other people that had to battle with the authorities for up to 12 months to have their foreign health insurance recognised, and I just didn't have the energy to try. Another thing was that these people had arrived with their insurance, whereas I have been in the Swiss system for some time. My hunch was that they just don't want me to use foreign insurance. Do you know of anyone else that uses BUPA in Kanton Zurich and how they did it?

Mark

I remember back when you could easily have foreign health cover in Zurich and then they changed it; I kept my PPP for about 2-3 years then by simply writing back to the authorities and enclosing the policy from PPP.

Sadly things have changed now but I also now live in SZ.....hmm, I wonder........

Tradiconsult not only covers students but any foreigner who is getting training in Switzerland. I'd ask the company specifically if your situation applies. I am a post-doc, so not a student, and they covered me.

I have not had a single problem with tradiconsult. I had an accident in the lab about two weeks after I signed up with them (I hadn't even paid the bill yet) and they completely covered everything which included 2 surgeries and a 15 day hospital stay (CHF 50,000). The only bill I was responsible for was the phone calls I placed while in the hospital.

For CHF 960/year I would highly highly recommend them.

I looked on the swisscare site. It stated postdocs are accepted at the discounted rate however I will be a postdoc at a pharma company. Does anyone in a similar position know if this is still acceptable?

cheers,

Bren

Why dont you get in touch with them and ask, you have nothing to lose.

I'm not a student, but I'm under 25, and only paying 102 CHF/month by one of the regular Swiss insurers, which I would not call half bad. My mother-in-law insists that my wife, a student at Uni Züri, keep coverage that costs something like 350 CHF/month . I repeatedly told her we should change the coverage, but my wife refused, saying that we should do what her mother suggests. Oh well.

Yes, get in touch with them as suggested. The best things about Swisscare (I have just signed up to that insurance) are that everything is in clear English - including the conversation I had with the VERY helpful person over the phone; the whole application process is web-based and straightforward, and they cover you going back to your own country (and I think others too) for visits. So it's health insurance that's really easy to set up with a good support network, and it also includes travel insurance.

I searched the forums but couldn't find anything for my particular situation.

I'm here on a fellowship from the US to do research at the ETH. I am not technically an employee of the university. Because of this I qualified for insurance for people here on training from tradiconsult.com. (Great, btw, accident with a CHF 50,000 total bill, covered all of it).

The Krankenpflege-Grundversicherung sent me the info saying I needed to get insurance from Canton Zurich. I sent them my insurance info, along with a letter from my boss well within the 3 month time frame, so that was back in October.

Last week, I received a letter in the mail saying my application for exception to local insurance was denied (so almost 7 months later). WFT?? Does anybody have any experience with this? Am I going to have to back pay for the last 10 months, cause I don't have CHF 2500 laying around for this.

Chemgoddess,

I searched for a thread using the name of the insurance company you used and merged your thread into this, as I think it is a bit more relevant in this particular situation.

Regarding the effectiveness of searches - please respect the forum's language policy it will make life easier for those trying locate search terms as well as for those people who live in other language regions within Switzerland.

Okay, I do not understand why this got moved. This is a specific question regarding the Krankenpflege-Grundversicherung and their refusal of my outside insurance, which I'm assuming a lot of people on this forum have. This has nothing to do with cheap health care for students.

Now, under this heading I do not think I will get the advice I need.

I disagree - following on from advice in this thread, you find that the healthcare ombudsman for Zurich says you're not covered.....with your student status.

Well, sorry about the language policy. Wasn't aware, am now. Will follow.

But, I am not a student nor am I an employee of the university.

Ok, student status or not - your insurance was refused because it came from this particular company, and this thread concerns this exact company - this is the best place for you to get some assistance and find others in Zurich who have their insurance with the same company.

Okay, Okay. I was wrong to disagree.