Private health care for retirees in Germany?

If you are on FB, there are sure to be some pages and groups just for you. I am on some FB pages for retiring in Portugal. There should be some websites/forums too. Try Toytown, they have tons of information about living in Germany as an English speaking expat.

Medicare can't be used over here anyway. Not sure how old you are, but public ins. may be out for you too. There are health ins. companies that are for expats.

I am trying to find out if there are any German based private health care insurers that I can contact to get quotes

You may start with this list.

Have you looked at an annual policy from GeoBlue?
https://www.geobluetravelinsurance.com/products/longterm/xplorer-5-overview.cfm

I understand that you're focusing on Germany. I don't know the reasons for that. Nor do I know much about Germany's health care system.

But I can share this about France's health care system. Beginning in 2016, France instituted a health care for all program that provides coverage to all legal residents of France: citizens or not; retirees or not.

When you first come to France as a retiree, you have to show that you have health care coverage for a year that generally is equivalent to French heath care coverage. I haven't priced that, but I've seen statements that such coverage would cost about $10,000 for the first year in France.

However, once you've lived in France for three months and can demonstrate a stable residence there, you can apply and you will be accepted into the French health care system, which negates the reason for paying for such health care coverage going forward.

French health care doesn't pay everything. That's why many French citizens/residents, including retired people, buy optional supplemental coverage (called a mutuelle), which costs between 75 € and 150 € per person per month, which makes most routine health care expenses (hospitalizations, prescriptions, etc.) available at no cost.

Maybe Germany has a similar system. If so, that would be great. But France offers a very good deal for retirees provided they can demonstrate the means to live in France without relying on the French social welfare system.

And how will you retire to Germany? What’s your definition of retirement? Because you can’t just bring yourself in and decide to stay for extended periods past 90 days in a 180 day period.

Thank you everyone for you replies. We are "tire kicking" at this point. I really appreciate everyone's response. As far as the question as to our retiring - we are both in our early sixties and figure if we are going to try living abroad, now is the time to do it, before we really do run into health issues. I will definitely look at the French system. I just picked Germany because it is a country we are familiar with from past travel and I wanted to just keep my question simple by not throwing in too many variables. Thank you again everyone.

In Germany you can get in contact to large health insurers such as AOK, TK or Barmer. All websites in English.

Good luck and in case of - welcome to Germany.

One thing not really mentioned, but pertinent to the discussion, is if you will be seeking Residency in whatever Country you are looking at.

The information on the French system is good, but you would need to have some type of Citizenship, or a Visa to have Residency before taking advantage of that system. Much the same for taking advantage of any other State systems, even some, in the example, German companies may not be interested in providing coverage for only a couple months.

Your best bet would be to leverage whatever coverage you have in the US, or will have after retirement, to cover you in the US and in Europe (I assume you have coverage here?) Beyond that, looking into one of the yearly travel policies would be a good choice, For a private company, I would opt for a US based company, solely for the ease of customer service when you need it. Getting coverage from a German or French company is fine, but when you need to call or use the website, it is obviously geared toward Native Language speakers, navigating the system could be challenging.

We lived in Augsburg, Germany, working for the US Army from 87-91. Our US government Blue Cross was good overseas, but sometimes you were required to pay in advance.

We still have that great coverage, but purchase travel insurance through AmEx for health care and medical evacuation. For a five week trip a couple of years ago, I paid about $55 for coverage for both of us, including medical evacuation insurance.

You could probably do 3 months easily using something like AmEx, perhaps more, but not for living all the time.

To be honest with you, we loved Germany and Southern Bavaria is wonderful, but those long German Winters are not for us. We would always be excited about taking our first trip south to Italy every year in the Spring. Once you get over the Alps with the sun shining, it was great.

I think living in two places would be more fun.

If you have not made a decision yet, Steve or any of his staff at TripInsuranceStore can help you. (No affiliation, etc etc etc) I learned of them at another travel forum and have since bought insurance through them for our last two trips.

Another thing I leaned is to look for insurance that is the primary payer of claims (or STTE). Otherwise you might have to pay out of pocket and then file for reimbursement.