or
Are you moving to work?
In other words - will you be working as a locally (as in Switzerland) employed person - or will you just be "on business" in Switzerland.
Former = Health Insurance
Latter = Doesn't
Instead of being a cheapskate register and pay up like everyone else all you are doing is forcing the price higher for everyone
Once you become a resident here you have to have Swiss health insurance.
Still, I would think you’d be due a refund for the unused part of the UK travel insurance, depending on how you pay for it.
- Swiss side: The swiss will in theory allow you to use a foreign insurer, only if they cover all that the swiss system (and law) says that must be covered. English travel isurers dont do that, eg wouldnt cover non-emergencies, or existing conditions. So the Swiss will say no.
- UK travel insurance, even if it has 10 months left, only cover short trips eg some say up to 14 or 21 days at a time, after which you are supposed to come back to UK before leaving again. Also they state that you must remain UK resident. Clearly you dont fulfil these requirements, so they will not pay anyway if something happens. So essentially the UK travel insurance does not cover you at all, for anything, really.
On the Swiss side, they will back date the insurance to when you arrived and require payment regardless. So it is better that you go to somewhere like www.comparis.ch and pick out an insurance that suits you, rather than have one assigned to you by the authorities.
You should also be aware that an insurance contract is what is known as a contract of "utmost good faith" meaning that unlike other types of contract, the responsibility is upon you to disclose all relevant facts to the insurer, otherwise the contract is invalid - and failing to disclose the fact that you are Swiss resident would be a big one there. And they will discover if the claim is big, because it is easy to do, you will not be the first one to do this and well worth their while to do so.
And I have to say, give the high cost of healthcare in this country, I think it is very foolish of people not to ensure that they are properly covered.
Thanks for the info. I was actually planning to be covered by holiday insurance until I started working. Is that fair play?
No. As soon as you get your residence permit, you have to be covered by Swiss insurance. If it’s another couple of weeks before you start work your travel insurance won’t cover you.
Sorry - MF beat me to it - it took me too long to make my post make sense.
Simple fracture - 7622 (estimated 7 days in hospital)
Pneumonia without complications - 10.144 (7 days in hospital)
Fractured femur - 13.249 (10 days in hospital)
Your holiday insurance will not pay if they find out you are living here (eg signed a contract for a flat, etc) and neither will your EHIC. Furthermore, check your 'holiday' insurance - most of them will state a maximum time cover for any single holiday (ours used to be 3 weeks, unless we informed them and paid extra for any single trip).
I won't have an apartment under my name for at least a few months until I secure a stable job. I think I'll just go with the 300 pm insurance plan.
If the premiums have not been paid , it is legally possible for insurance companies to refuse cover unless the injury or complaint is life threatening .
There are also reports of doctors requiring new patients to produce proof that they are medically insured. There is a report of one woman from Basel, insured with SWICA, who was refused an operation and sent home by the hospital as she owed her health insurance company 75 centimes. She had accidentally not paid the full amount the previous month and the insurance company had listed her as a defaulter. http://www.beobachter.ch/geld-sicher...heimgeschickt/