Choosing Top-Up Healthcare Insurance and a Mutuelle
Originally posted on & updated on 20th December, 2024
In recent weeks our blog has focused on the healthcare system in France, in this article we explore how to choose your French Medical Top-Up Insurance cover. While this isn’t the most glamorous parts of you new life, it’s a really important part and making sure you have all your healthcare ducks in a row is essential.
Ideally, you should make all the healthcare calls, visits and decisions you need to make before your final move, but if it’s already too late for that, or if that’s not practical, then do make a point of sorting this side of your new life out as soon as you possibly can, peace of mind is priceless.
How to Choose Healthcare Insurance
We’ve already explained in global terms how the reimbursement system in France works, with the stage typically refunding around 70% of your expenditure once you’re ‘in the system’. So, when it comes to the additional 30%, you can either make the decision to fund this yourself or to take out an insurance policy to cover it.
In most instances it doesn’t make financial sense to plan to cover this expense yourself. The sad fact about life and health is that none of us know what’s round the corner and medical bills can mount very quickly. As a result, it normally makes best sense to insure yourself and your family, so that your medical expenses aren’t a worry. In this article we’ll explain how to go about choosing your mutuelle/complémentaire santé, and see the article about the Ameli system to tracks your re-imbursements, it’s all online.
What is a Complémentaire Santé in France?
A “complémentaire santé” insurance policy in France, often referred to as “mutuelle” is a supplemental health insurance plan that covers healthcare costs not fully reimbursed by the national social security system (Assurance Maladie). A “complémentaire santé” insurance policy is a vital part of the French healthcare system, offering supplementary coverage to ensure individuals and families can access comprehensive healthcare services with a diminished financial strain.
Mandatory for Employees
Since 2016, employers in France have been required to provide a “complémentaire santé” policy for their employees. This ensures that all employees have access to supplemental health insurance, enhancing overall healthcare coverage in the country.
The Basics on Top-Up Insurance
There are various different levels of policy, from basic cover to guaranteed cover for the actual costs of all medical expenses. Which you choose will depend on a clever balance between your budget and the importance you place on being reimbursed in full for treatments. It is now relatively uncommon for health questions to be asked when taking out a mutuelle/complémentaire santé so that’s one thing you shouldn’t need to worry about.
Defining your Medical Needs
The most important thing is getting enough cover but also making sure that you aren’t over-sold health cover. While it is common for people to arrive in France with a significant amount of capital at the start, note that it may take some time to establish an income stream.
What this means is that while you might feel relatively ‘rich’ at the outset, it’s really important to balance your spending with your long-term financial possibilities. This impacts on your choice of health cover, because in the early stages of your life in France you may well struggle to understand everything that’s being explained to you, particularly about top up health cover. Nevertheless, it’s important to make sure you don’t waste hard-earned cash by making the wrong decisions.
Insurance for Seniors in France
Navigating health insurance can be particularly challenging for seniors, who often have unique healthcare needs. In France, understanding the complexities of the healthcare system and the available insurance options is essential for obtaining comprehensive coverage and peace of mind.
Immediate Coverage Without Medical Questions
No waiting period. You are insured regardless of your age and health status, as long as the contract is in effect.
Tailored Attention to Your Needs
Reimbursement for private rooms, specialised treatments in the conventional sector (cardiology, rheumatology, etc.), non-reimbursed medications, natural medicine (osteopathy, physiotherapy, etc.), prostate diagnostics, and periodontology.
Daily Support
Home delivery of medications if you are immobilised for more than two days. Assistance for all questions related to loss of autonomy.
No Upfront Costs
With the presentation of your extended third-party payment card, you are exempt from upfront costs (within the limits of your contract’s guarantees) at nearly 160,000 healthcare professionals, including over 10,000 independent or franchised opticians in the Carte Blanche network.
Shop Around for Insurance Quotes
There are a huge number of health cover options in France including companies with exclusive online presence and with physical agencies. Not surprisingly prices vary substantially from provider to provider, which is one of the best reasons to shop around. That said, there is rarely an argument for choosing the cheapest cover, just because it’s the cheapest. So, how do you decide who to ask for a quote?
Online or High-Street Mutuelle?
The first decision to make is whether or not you feel comfortable with an online only solution for your health insurance. We can definitely help with this, as we have special forms on the website to request a quote from our bilingual insurance experts. Unless your French is very good, the chances are you’ll find phone conversations a bit unnerving at the start, so our advice is to to fill out as many forms as possible, and compare the quotes, is the small print in English too?
If you have decided that a High Street presence is important, so you can see someone face-to-face, you then need to establish whether or not you’re relying on finding an English-speaker or if you’re happy to work with someone who only speaks French. Clearly if you’re happy to work with someone who only speaks French, your choice will be widened. If you are fixed on only working with an English speaker, you may well have to swallow the fact that you might be unlucky and end up paying a slight premium for that service.
Ask for Multi-Policy Deals
Either way, asking friends and contacts is a great place to start. By working this way you can establish which insurance agents and brokers in your area are effective, efficient and price competitive. If you don’t already have a circle of contacts, then your only option is either to drive around to see which agents are operating in your local area or to check out your local Les Pages Jaunes. (Yellow Pages).
It’s worth identifying a few agents and either asking them to come to visit or going to their office. When you meet them, make sure you have a list of your insurance requirements and ask them for quotes for each part of the cover you need, for example for your house, your new car, a caravan, a boat, your pets etc. Once you have quotes for each, it’s worth asking if you can negotiate a reduction if you take out more than one policy, or every policy with them. Our English-speaking insurance partners are based in France, they offer competitive prices and discounts for multi-cover policies.
Choose A Billingual Insurance Broker
When you have gathered up quotes from two or three companies, it’s then a simple case of double-checking that they are all offering the same levels of cover; weighing up which broker you found easiest to deal with and comparing the prices. Do bear in mind that a few euros of overpayment is a small price to pay for an English speaking expert who seems significantly friendlier or more approachable than the others. To learn more, complete the form online to receive a quote for mutuelle/top-up health insurance, or please contact us for assistance.
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