Hello,

Here is my story. I relocated 1 month ago to Zurich. My employee has submitted my papers for a B permit 2 weeks ago and I decided not to get the Swiss insurance until I have the answer about B permit. So, basically I have no permit and no medical insurance yet.

Last Sunday I went to ski and broke my knee, so basically I cannot move from my bad right now. What would you advise me to do? I can start getting the insurance even today, but I guess it is a bit late. I think I will need to have a surgery, at least on long term and some investigation from an orthoped. However, my nightmare is - what if they tell me that the only escape is to have a knee surgery? I guess I will be broke if I do a knee surgery in Switzerland from my own pocket.

Any advice would be appreciated. And yes, I know that I should have had insurance from the first day of my living here, but there is no point to remind me that...I have other things to think about.

Thanks.

Sorry about your accident. Would you happen to have an insurance in your home country? If yes you would have to pay for surgery/treatment first and then claim it back from your insurance, since it was a accident/emergency.

We found that once we had chosen our insurance company, they back dated our payments to the day we arrived, therefore I would assume that once you have chosen a company, you are insured....we still paying off our first 8 months here in insurance....give it a try?

In any case, accidents are covered by your employer's accident insurance, not your medical insurance.

Tom

I *think* that if your work contract is already valid, then you are covered for accidents under a blanket "accident policy"...?
Good luck with the knee!

And if you are full time employed they are required to cover you not to decide to purchase a separate instance.

Just to reiterate the points already made:

1. You had an accident. That's covered by accident insurance not health insurance. Accident insurance is arranged and paid for by your employer (assuming you're not part time) although they may deduct the accidents-outside-of-the-office component from your salary if they're really tight. Like mine does.

2. Not that it's relevant in your scenario right now, but you have 3 months from the date you arrived to arrange health insurance. Your payments, and hence your cover, will be back-dated to your arrival date. OK, they might not be if you don't tell tem when you arrived, but ...

Yes, I have a traveller insurance..but this is not a UE Green Card (excuse me for possible wrong wording), and I think it will take me years to have the spent money back. However, if that is the only option then I will have to do it.

Sorry, I replied to the wrong message.

Here is my reply to you message - how do they know my real arrival date? Wont they reject me if I have an injury? Also, does this affect the insurance cost? Can they ask me to finance this particular issue from my pocket?

Even free time accidents?

Yes been there tested that and it works

Yes, I have a traveller insurance..but this is not a UE Green Card (excuse me for possible wrong wording), and I think it will take me years to have the spent money back. However, if that is the only option then I will have to do it.

How do I know if my contract is valid? I asked my boss, he told me that accidents are covered by the contract, but the problem is that I am right now in an intermediate state. I have signed the contract, but it was not yet approved by the authorities 8I have no permit issued)...so do I have an accident insurance or not ?

Sorry to hear about your accident, here are a few points to think about:

- Accidents are not covered by health insurance, you need to have a separate insurance for accidents which is normally set up via your employer

- Since you don't have a work permit at this time, you could not take out health insurance in any case, so there is no point beating yourself up about it.

- there might be a slim possibility that your future employer's accident policy would cover it, but this would depend on you having a valid employment contract, however given that you don't have a work permit, I doubt it. Still check with him and see what he says....

- Since you are here right now officially as a tourist, perhaps your travel insurance would cover it, that is if you have some.

you don't need a work permit to take out health insurance, a permit may take 9 months or so to come through . If you go to the hospital or Doctors and give them your employees name and address, assuming that you work full time then it will be all covered under their accident insurance. Your health and well being is the most important thing.

if your employment contract is not valid, I think you can also enroll retroactively into the accident insurance

have a look here
http://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen/...lldeckung.aspx

and here
http://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen/.../zuzueger.aspx

I think (if I remember correctly) that our work contract date was checked and also one of the first things we did was get our permit - so that is how they knew how long we had been here. Anyway it is on our permit that we arrived 10th Oct - maybe we were just honest! (and naive!)

Are people blind? Who cares. You're claiming off your ACCIDENT insurance not HEALTH insurance. And regardless of whether or not you have your permit, you're still employed and hence still covered by the ACCIDENT insurance your empployer has arranged for you.

PS If you are actually blind, then if you fell over and somehow stabbed yourself in both eyes as you fell then it's accident insurance; if it's a defect in your vision which has suddenly got much worse then it's health insurance.

Not always. If you are not employed when arriving in CH you can add accident to your medical insurance.

Can I have a legual contract and not having a work permit? I mean, I signed a contract, but I really believe that it becomes "official" once the authorities approve it. Am I wrong?