Health insurance is mandatory for everyone visiting or living in Germany.
When living in Germany you can either take our private (privaten Krankenversicherung – PKV) or public (gesetzliche Krankenversicherung – GKV) health insurance. Your choice will depend on your age, salary and employment status.
To know:
- It is extremely difficult to change from Private to Public insurance. The other way around is no issue
- Contributions for public depends on your salary, contributions for private depends on your risk profile (age and health). Private insurance become more expensive the older you get
- Private insurance – you pay expenses out of your pocket and claim them back
- Public insurance – your claim is submitted and paid by the company
- Only civil servants, the self-employed, students and employees whose salary exceeds the annual income limit may take out private insurance. In 2021 and 2022, this limit will be EUR 64,350 gross per year. For employees, the employer pays half of the premium, but only up to the maximum rate of a statutory insured person. In 2021 and 2022 that is around 385 euros.
Resources on the web
Top up medical cover
You can top up your medical cover for example Dentist cover.
You can read more about it on the How To Germany Site. There is also a good article (German) from Focus about Zusatzversicherung
Tourist Health Cover (travel to Germany)
Tourist needs travel and medical insurance before they can apply for their Visa’s.
Some of the options are your medical aid or a company like TIC.
Please be aware of the requirements from the Embassy, not all credit card cover is accepted.
When you need cover for 6 to 12 months, you can look at Klemmer.
Cover for freelancers
At the time of writing, these two companies offer medical aid for freelancers in Germany
Comparative websites
The following websites offer a comparison of medical insurance. Please always read the fine print before signing up through comparative sites
Medical insurance companies
- Krankenkassse has a list of private and public health insurance companies.
- PKV lists members of the Private Krankenversicherung (PKV)
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Visiting a doctor
When I first came to Germany, I was fortunate to still frequently travel back to SA, so I did all my check-ups there and tried
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