Does anyone have health insurance with a company called Avanex? If so would you mind sharing your experience? tks

Yes. Avanex is a subsidiary of Helsana. We changed on Jan 1 this year and saved about CHF120 /month for what appears the same cover. As we have yet to make a claim I can't advise further...

I do, I posted details somewhere. Did the search on Avanex not find it? If so search on "ignore bills".

yeah, i have. im quiet satisfied with it.

I also do have my insurance from Avanex with CHF2500 deductible. I (fortunately) have not yet made any claims.

Avanex' low price comes from the fact that they do not offer the insurance through agents and incur less sales and marketing cost. Otherwise, they use the same offices, and infrastructure with other Helsena brands including Helsena, and Progres.

I think insurance plans such as Avanex are best if you are young, don't expect frequent medical help and want to keep your costs low with a high deductible.

We applied for cover with Avanex about a month ago (filled in the forms), but we haven't heard anything back from them. Is this normal? I must admit i'm a little concerned that we've waited so long (relatively) for health insurance. If we were to need medical assisstance whilst the application was being processed where would we stand?

Did you call them and check? You can also go to their website, and leave a message. Most companies have such a call back service.

No we haven't called, but as I said, I wasn't sure if this is how long it takes to get health insurance. Being from the UK, i've never had to apply for health insurance before so it's a bit of an unknown. I've also seen complaints on other threads on this forum regarding the tardiness of certain Swiss companies/individuals. If this is too long to wait, then I will contact the company. I just wanted advice regarding the normal time taken for the processing of applications.

1 month doesn't sound normal. In such cases, I normally get a response within 2 weeks.

Ok, I did suspect 1 month was too long, but just wanted to make sure. My german isn't quite upto scratch yet so I think i'll try to leave a message on their internet site before I attempt to call them. My husband and I did do separate applications (his in German, mine in English) and we haven't heard anything from them. I'll contact them to see what the deal is. Thanks.

just call them.they do understand english and are very helpful.
1 month is by far too much. maybe papers got lost?

Dear all, tks a lot for all your messages, very helpful. This forum is great!!!

Sorted! My husband rang them and managed to speak to the one person in the call centre who spoke English. They have received the application, it is being processed, I am covered and the papers will be sent this week. Even if they were a little slow, at least they have addressed the issue, which should help the OP.

1st: --> Avanex is OK. As a member of Helsana they'll provide a good service for a very low price!
2nd: --> Avanex is a young "new brand of helsana" and founded to reach young and healthy clients!
3rd: --> Avanex is a "Krankenkasse" with the cheapest primes and very good coverage in most of the cantons in Switzerland.
4th: --> AVANEX IS THE RIGHT THING FOR A SPECIAL TARGET GROUP. IF YOU ARE YOUNG GO FOR IT. BUT KEEP IN MIND THAT YOUR RISKS (WHILE GETTING OLDER, SICK, ...) ARE PUSHING YOU OUT OF THIS TARGET GROUP.
5th: --> If you are between 18 -35 and healthy,... don't mind - just jump from year to year to the best and cheapest "Krankenkasse". But once you've got health problems or if you reach a age >35, do your steps thoughtful...
6th: --> Since 1996 (after the Swiss voted for the KVG) the "Krankenkassen" are profit orientated companies, they learned very fast and at this time the know very well about how to earn money (...- means which risks are OK, which ones not!!!)

Does Avanex provide post mail correspondence in English?

Just checked Avanxes.

OK, I see positive replies here. But on the web site if you calculate the price of the cheapest insurance it is quite expensive if you compare with, say, with Sanitas.

Not an Ad, I just in the process of choosing right insurance, and I remember the prices for most brands

All I can tell you that in the past I had received my so called insurance offer, insurance application and health declaration both in English and German.

For the past 1.5 years I have been receiving all my invoices only in German and even though I send inquires to their web-site in English, I only get replies in German. You can try call the number for English operator but good luck

As we speak, I'm going right now through heaps of invoices from the last year and try to understand them.

Family has been with Avanex for 3 years without any problems-
Including all the pre-natal and birth of our son.

All corespondence is in German, however.

Avanex is good, we moved to Avanex about 3 years back. Now we are moving to Wincare of Sanitas, because in our kanton we can save Sfr 980.

Best wishes

It's only the companies that offer supplementary cover that are profit oriented. The basic insurance is run on a non profit basis.