TL;DR:

I arrived in Switzerland on January 8th with an open-ended work contract, along with my wife and our three cats.

During the first week, I compared health insurance options on Comparis. At the end of February, I received a call from someone claiming I had left my number last year (which could be true, since I did visit Switzerland then). He invited me for a meeting. During that meeting, he presented some health insurance options and explained the complementary coverage.

I told him I preferred KPT since it was the cheapest and I didn't need much coverage. He then said, "If you sign with Helsana, you don’t have to pay for the first three months."
I was surprised, as I wasn’t aware of that benefit, and agreed to go with Helsana. However, we didn’t have our residence permits or the temporary substitute document (“Dichiarazione Sostitutiva” in Italian), so we left without signing anything.

Later, I received my "Dichiarazione Sostitutiva", but my wife didn’t. HR advised us to wait until our actual permits arrived, which I accepted. As the health insurance registration deadline was approaching, I called the Migration Office and they sent me my wife’s document electronically.

I scheduled another meeting, and two consultants came to my home. I noticed that the one I had spoken to earlier was visibly nervous and shaking. They began by telling me I had misunderstood, and that the deal they offered was related to last year — which made no sense. I had a mild anxiety or panic attack trying to remain calm.

(For context, I had already saved the money for the retroactive payment, but I was still afraid of being caught off guard financially.)

Then they gave me a blank sheet of paper to sign and scanned my signature. Unfortunately, I signed it — which, looking back, was a mistake.

A few days later, I received an email not from Helsana, but from Visana, informing me of my new health insurance policy. I was shocked. I tried to forget the situation and moved on.

Later, when I went to AXA to sign up for car insurance, I explained the situation. The AXA agent brought over a colleague who handled health insurance. He looked at the contract and immediately said, “Ti ha fregato il broker” — meaning, “The broker screwed you.”

He showed me better and cheaper options (with free doctor choice) and pointed out that the broker had signed me up for coverage starting on January 1st, even though I wasn’t in Switzerland at that time. I sent a letter to cancel the contract and started a new one with a different provider.

Today, the original broker called me and said I was “not behaving correctly” and that “this is not how things work in Switzerland.” He then threatened to send me a 500 CHF invoice for “consulting services.” I hung up.

Honestly, I don’t feel I owe them anything. They misled me from day one.
Is it possible that I can be forced to pay this invoice?

by HolderHawk

3 comments

  1. lesson learnt — there is absolutely no need to deal with brokers.

    at some point some other broker will call you to talk about your health insurance and see if you want to change it. just close the phone.

  2. Yes you were screwed. It happens to everyone.

    Regarding the 500CHF: technically it would depend on how far he’s ready to go, and how far you’re willing to go. He could file a “debt recovery”, and that could be an issue for you. Though you could dispute it easily, doing so can be time consuming and costly.

    Most likely, if you write him clearly how he lied to you, and chose products that were not adequate for you, thus failing in his duty, and that you are ready to go to the end, he will “forget” about the 500CHF.

    Now: you should take a legal insurance, so that next time this kind of things happen, you don’t have to worry: peace of mind.

  3. You were screwed but also AXA are crooks and to be avoided.

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