Join now

Travel/Health Care Insurance for Expats

Hi all. My partner will soon be joining me in Switzerland, she is from Australia. As it is really difficult to get Swiss residency, we wont be staying longer than the 3 Months VISA free stay (applies to the whole Schengen Zone) after that, we are planning to go to Turkey for another 3 Months, where she also has 3 Months visa free...

I need help with respect to finding an appropriate insurance for this time period, after the 6M we are planning to go back to Australia anway. So it would only be for 3M Switzerland/Schengen Zone and 3M Turkey, possibly some other countries like Croatia or Serbia.

However, it is really difficult to a) find a global health care and b) a guest insurance that is valid for the necessary time period.

What are your experiences, what insurances should I be looking at?

I have already found out about:
1. Allianz Care - International Health Care: this seems very promising, however, the only drawback is that the minimum contract duration is 12M ...and furthermore, it is a bit unclear to me, if we would be eligible for this in the first place. They seem to always talk about the "principal country of residence" ...which according to their definition is the country where you spend more than 6M per year. Has anybody heard of this insurance/what are your experiences?

2. Allianz Travel Care - Guest Insurance for the Schengen Zone: this is perfect for the Schengen zone, although a bit expensive as well, but it covers everything (including covid - this is a must anyway for us). However, the catch is, it is only for the Schengen Zone, and we neeed to leave the Schengen Zone after 3M....

3. IMG - Patriot International (Platinum): As of yesterday, this policy is also covering COVID. The insurance seems fine, and the company behind it seems legit. However, some quick googling showed me that the refund / claim procedure is very tidious ... basically they try to fight you to avoid paying out your claims and it takes several months until you even hear back from them. The price is very affordable though, it costs about Protected content for 6M.

4) Turkey has a traveller insurance as well, however this is only up to a maximum of 30 days. So its not long enough.

Please share your experiences with this topic, highly appreciated!

Thank you:)

World Forum

Our Global Partners