Insurances

As a self-employed person you need a number of insurances to either comply with German law or to operate your business without too many worries:

• Every resident of Germany needs health insurance. The self-employed too. Whether you are eligible for German public health insurance (Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung) or can only take out legally compliant private health insurance while living in Germany depends on a number of parameters.
• EU citizens often have access to German public health insurance. But you need to sign up within three months at the latest after taking up residence in Germany and have moved here directly from your home country.
• Expats from outside the EU usually do not have access to the German public health insurance system as a self-employed person. You need private health insurance that is compliant with German law (the vast majority of international health insurance policies are not!).

Running your business, you’ll need general indemnity insurance. And for most kinds of businesses it is important or even required by your contract partners that you also have pecuniary damage liability insurance (insurance that compensates your client for financial damage you have caused by accident or negligence).

While general indemnity insurance is pretty straightforward (as is any contents insurance protecting you from theft or vandalism of your most valued property and electronics), the pecuniary damage coverage depends a lot on your kind of business and the risks involved.

Self-employed persons who are just about to move to Germany or who have been living in Germany without legally compliant health insurance face a number of unpleasant challenges:

• Very often you do not have access to the German public health insurance system
• While you have to have legally compliant health insurance, the alternative to public health insurance, German private health insurance providers, are not exactly eager to sign you up because they consider you to be too much of a credit risk and health risk (without sufficient information about you).

Because self-employed expats face such a challenge in setting up the right and legally compliant health insurance, ASEIG has created a special group plan exclusively for ASEIG members with HALLESCHE, one of the leading German private health insurance companies.