Hi, I have a question about health insurance. My girlfriend (35) moved to Germany in 2022 August, and started working as a freelancer. She did not arrange herself a German health insurance, as it didn’t seem so urgent, and she was still insured by her home country’s public health insurance company (within EU), but she registered in Germany with Anmeldung, get a SteuerID, UstID, etc. for billing clients. And at some point she stopped paying for her home country’s health insurance, so she was not insured by them either.

At the end of 2023 (so almost one and half year later she moved to here) we tried to register her with TK, as it’s time to have a German health insurance, and TK rejected her because she did not register within three months of her Anmeldung, eg. after officially registering in Germany in 2022. I never heard of such a law, but well, we may be ignorant of that, we’re not that practical people I have to admit. The TK employee even told her she won’t be accepted by any of the public health insurance companies, because of not registering within 3 months after her arrival, and because she’s working as a freelancer, and her best chance is either a private health insurance company or maybe the Künstlersozialkasse (she’s a graphic designer/illustrator), but KSK usually replies/accepts her (is she’s eligible) in half a year or so.

We started research private health insurances, and some of them would only accept her if she’d earn more than 30k a year, which she isn’t, and for example [Feather even states](https://feather-insurance.com/blog/is-private-health-insurance-best-option/) they won’t accept artists, designers, etc.

So now we just don’t know what to do. She’ll apply to KSK, but if that takes half a year that’s just very long, and by the law she should be insured, but she can’t as seems like nor private nor public won’t accept her. Anyone had similar experiences, anyone can give us some advice?

Thanks!

by marxcie

6 comments

  1. She should have registered with German public health insurance within 3 months of arrival, which she failed to do. With rights comes responsibilities and having health insurance was her responsibility. She is no longer eligible for public health insurance.

    The private health insurance companies are only required to offer her the Basistarif, however, that costs about 800€/month.

    The KSK also has minimum income requirements.

  3. she could contact a lawyer (Fachanwalt für Sozialversicherungsrecht) to look at her options. As this is an individual thing possible depending on factors unknown, general advice is not possible.

    There are ways to get into public health insurance, but it may be complicated and a very long process including things like being employed for some time or going back to her home country. Until she has cleared this up, she may have to insure herself via Basisversicherung with a private health insurance. She should do this quickly as being without health insurance is really risky. Things which could ruin her financially can happen very suddenly.

    I would contact a lawyer. This will cost money, but she needs to tackle this issue.

  4. Only two ways would be either get married or have her find a regular job asap.

  5. The way round it is to get a shitty part time job in Mcds or somewhere for 2-3 months – or just long enough to get on the Krankenkasse. Not a nebenjob/minijob, it must be at least proper part time.

    Then once you are on the Krankenkasse you can go back to freelancing, ring up the Krankenkasse and tell them you will now be making ‘voluntary’ payments based on your tax returns.

  6. >At the end of 2023 (so almost one and half year later she moved to here) we tried to register her with TK, as it’s time to have a German health insurance, and TK rejected her because she did not register within three months of her Anmeldung, eg. after officially registering in Germany in 2022.

    Sounds like BS tbh. Do you not have some sort of written notification from the health insurance that explains their reasoning more exactly?

    No idea what they were basing this on but it sounds like you just had a confused case worker, or maybe you didn’t cite the correct “type” of coverage. I’d try other public insurances.

    At the very least she should be eligible for public insurance under this rule allowing “freiwillige Versicherung”:

    >Personen, die als Mitglieder aus der Versicherungspflicht ausgeschieden sind und in den letzten fünf Jahren vor dem Ausscheiden mindestens vierundzwanzig Monate oder unmittelbar vor dem Ausscheiden ununterbrochen mindestens zwölf Monate versichert waren; Zeiten der Mitgliedschaft nach § 189 und Zeiten, in denen eine Versicherung allein deshalb bestanden hat, weil Bürgergeld nach § 19 Absatz 1 Satz 1 des Zweiten Buches zu Unrecht bezogen wurde, werden nicht berücksichtigt,

    https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/sgb_5/__9.html

    Any times covered by public insurance in the EU should count toward this rule due to EU law.

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