not sure if this is the proper place but i got a phone call from the health insurance company that my employers and i chose and they said i had to pay for the month of february even though every document i have for work visa and contract says i started work on march first.

they say that because my passport is stamped february 20th (which is also marked on my registration with the canton of basel as the date i moved here, which i am not disputing.....) then i have to pay for that whole month.

i asked the woman on the phone if it was possible to just pay from the 20th to the end of the month to which she said no.

i also told her that i entered switzerland as a tourist on the 20th and didn't move here or start work until the first of march but she said that because the basel registration says feb. 20 then that's the date i 'moved' here and started working here....i simply arrived here on the 20th and did a week of travel before i started my job....

the only way i think i can prove this is if i had a passport stamp from some other country during that week before i started my job but i don't because i used trains....

i have written to my liason in geneva who issued my work visa....i didn't eve register with basel until the end of march. my boss said i was supposed to lie on the form but the woman representative took my passport and checked the stamp with the application so i think lying would have been a big no no...?

so me and my boss both agree that we don't want to pay this because it's 300 francs a piece for a month i wasn't really even here or working here....

anyone ever run into this issue?

according to the rules anyone living here has to have insurance. sadly i had no insurance in the US before coming here...

thanks!

Insurance is calculated on whole months and you will, therefore, have to pay for the whole month.

however, i wasn't working....as a tourist, one does not have to have insurance or so i have read. i am waiting to hear back as to me leaving the country and coming back in on the work visa.....

seems like they don't prorate much here in switzerville!

We came here initially in August to check it out before we decided to stay for good. A month or two later we applied for our permits and got them a week later. The permit was backdated to the date that we entered the country in August and we had to get our insurance that covered the same time period. Seems kind of strange but that's the way it appears to work here.

as the others before me have said, you have to pay insurance from the time you enter the country to live here.

i assume you came here with the intention of staying? (otherwise you are really lucky to have found a job in 10 days! took me nine months!). so you did not really entered like a tourist....

i am afraid you have to pay this month and if please explain to your boss that it is the rules (and not something that you did) and there is no way out of it (as far as i know)

If you came here to work, which seems to be the case, then the insurance must start from the first day of the month you arrived.

this is seeming to be the case.

c'est la vie. i'll just have to wait until my next pay day to pay them!

i had the job before getting here....all my contracts/visa forms are dated march first....

thanks everyone!

Hi there,

The problem here is not the date you started work but the day your official residency began.

Insurance is compulsory for all residents in Switzerland - whether you're working or not.

Personally, I think it's a bit harsh that they're making you pay for the whole month. Although officially this is correct, a lot of companies will let you off the first month (especially as it was only a matter of days in your case)

Bad luck.

by the time our insurance got sorted we had 3 x 800chf to pay - we contacted our insurance companies and they organised a payment plan for us...with all the other stuff you have to organise in those first few months, we were just glad to break even after 6 months of living here, and actually starting to get ahead by the end of the first year...maybe...unless we need to go to the dentist...