Private Health Insurance

Hello Elke,

Welcome on board !

Till members share their feedback with you, feel free to order free quotes from our International Health Insurance partners.

All the best

Bhavna

International or expat health insurers, like the ones linked to by Bhavna above, do not fulfill German statutory requirements and are thus no alternative to (compulsory) German health cover.

There are private health insurance comparison sites, like this one:

https://www.check24.de/private-krankenv … leichen/a/

Of course they are in German. If you are not fluent, get an insurance broker's help.

Pre-existing conditions often cost extra or are excluded altogether.

Which visa type are you intending to get? And are you aware that you will have to tax your USA income (incl. pension) here in Germany (potentially on top of USA taxes)?

It altogether won't come cheap!

@beppi Thank you. I am a native German speaker but have been gone from Germany for many many years. This is helpful.

@beppi

I am confident I can get my German citizenship back if I want to (do I?), my whole family still lives in Germany but they don't have the information I am looking for. And yes, I am aware about the taxes. We are most worried about the requirement for private health care and its cost.

@Bhavna Thank you Bhavna. I think Beppi is on the right track on what I am looking for.

I just put, into the site I linked to above, sample data for a 65 year old retiree. It came up with options between 770 € and 1500 € per month (per person). That is in line with my expectations, as the maximum premium for public health insurance is approx. 750 € per month and private cover certainly costs more, especially at advanced age.

If you do not have that money, but can prove that you were in the public scheme immediately prior to your departure from Germany/EU (no matter how long ago), you are entitled to join the public scheme again (and your husband too, as dependent free of charge - as long as he has no or very low own income).

Another, more far-fetched method is becoming German again, moving here and applying for social security ("Harty IV"). But that would only work if you have no income - the USA pension will make it impossible.

Thank you, Beppi. I was with both public Health Insurance providers Barmer and AOK. First as a university student (Barmer) and two years working in Accounting (AOK) before I left for the US and gave up my citizenship (Military wife). I thought I needed to have at least 5 years completed overall before I could be re-instated. I don't think the 5 years as a student count. Maybe I need to just reach out to a Health Care Insurance Rep and get some basic info.

Hi everyone,

hope you are doing well.

Just to let you know, I am currently discussing with a couple of local public insurers, hopefully they will appear in our list of preferred health insurance providers (on top of the list) in a few weeks

Take care,

julien

@obsculta I haven't heard of a "five years" rule, but yours might be a specific case outside of my knowledge.

Do not consult an insurance agent, as they will invariably try to get you into the private scheme (which is the only way for them to earn a commission). Contact several public insurers of your choice instead - the answers you get from them often vary, because the matter is so complicated that they themselves don't understand it!