Complicated query - frontelier

[maddiema]

Hi there

Hope someone can help - after living between France and the UK for a year I now have a job in Switzerland and live in France, and I am desperately trying to sort out health cover. As a frontelier I need total cover. However, the crux is that we were originally told that if I went private, we (that is myself, husband and two year old) all would have to go private and the same for CPAM - it has to be all of us or none. So we decided to go for CPAM and CMU.

However, went today and was told that if I went with CMU I would only be covering myself and my daughter, not my husband, who would be covered by our social security number from Alsace and the E106. So not quite sure who to believe now as if this is true it will actually be cheaper for me to go private rather than have CMU and a mutuelle.

Does anyone have any advice? Appreciate its a slightly out of the ordinary situation!

M.

[Sunday Driver]

This is a little confusing.  Do you have an E106?  You mention your social security number from Alsace - are you already registered?

Are you aware that healthcare contributions are handled differently in Alsace/Moselle?

 

 

[Pangur]

Where in Switzerland are you working?  As a frontalier working in Geneva, you have to take out private insurance and you are not allowed use your carte vitale in France, even if you are entitled to one via a spouse.  This is apparently because your taxes are deducted at source in Geneva.  Other cantons have different rules and perhaps if you are paying tax directly to France, you can use the CV.  You can take out a special frontalier policy with most French insurers.  Spouses do not have to use the same type of insurance - I have private, my husband has a carte vitale  However, if he was not entitled to have a carte vitale on his own steam, he would have to go private with me.  Perhaps whoever you spoke to assumed your husband was not entitled to his own carte vitale.  Of course, this information that is applicable in our case and could be completely different for you.

In my experience, there is not a lot of readily available information on the sometimes complex rules around frontaliers, especially around insurance.  Even employers can give totally misleading advice - it took a few months for a friend to get properly insured, after being totally and continually misdirected by her employers.  From what I've learned, if your husband is entitled to a cv, he should use it.  It is only if you are not paying social insurance in France and therefore not entitled to a cv, that you have to go private, either with an insurer in Switzerland or France. 

If you speak any french, www.frontalier.com can be really useful.  They send out quarterly magazines addressing issues specific to frontaliers (40,000 cross the border each day!) and even run special workshops to help you with your tax returns each year.