Tom
What can happen is that your employer refuses to pay part of the non work-related accident insurance premium coverage. He is always responsible to cover the full work-related accident insurance premium, though, as it is only through work that one is exposed to the possibility of work-related accidents in the first place. Whereas non work-related accidents can, as the name indicates, happen anywhere outside of work
If the OP only took basic plus accident with a high franchise it would obviously be lower than that.
Just in case anyone out there indulges in these.
there's no comma between 'franchise' and 'if'; if there had been it possibly might have been read as the accident and complimentary insurance not being included but as it is it's correct.
Just as an example for Geneva, my youngest son (32), has basic insurance plus complimentary insurance which includes dental and glasses, and he's not restricted to doctors within one of these limited group medical practices. Each policy has an annual franchise of 500 francs a year. At the moment he pays 670 per month.
When he moves to the Neuchatel area later this year he'll be paying less than 300 for exactly the same cover.
As I said, Geneva is expensive!
Anyway, the OP wants to know if his wife gets out of paying for her health insurance (or gets a lower rate) just because she doesn't work.
The simple answer is 'NO'.
The cheapest option is to opt for Basic (plus Accident in her case as a non-worker), and to chose the highest franchise possible. But they need to be aware that they're responsible for paying all medical bills that arise until that franchise level is reached, and that each and every year.
Central Bern or central Geneva, born in 1980 with accident cover, a 500 chf franchise and standard model.
Geneva
https://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen...d-298e85fe4938
Bern
https://en.comparis.ch/krankenkassen...2-ec52523c2877
There us not much difference between the two to be honest if you choose Assura but the others are generally quite a bit more expensive in Geneva and Bern is not one of the cheaper cantons for health insurance either.
Not sure why my post above merited a groan from you.
I did read the post and fully understood it. As you've also demonstrated, Geneva is just as expensive as some other places and the cost depends what you want to pay for. Wrongly or rightly, I made the assumption that as the OP was worried about the cost, they would be targettng the lowest rates without additional, expensive supplements.
I also said that Geneva was one of the most expensive places not the most expensive.
As I showed in my example it is easily possible to pay 500 chf per month just for basic insurance in both a Geneva and Bern and Anjela was just giving him fair warning that the costs may be as much as 500 chf depending in the options he chose.