Step 5

To complete your enrollment as a student in Germany, you must have a health insurance cover. Most times the insurance from your home country will not suffice as sufficient health insurance cover. For this reason you will need to obtain health insurance from a German health insurance provider. This will be an important step in completing your application.

What are the options for Health Insurance in Germany for Students?

There are two types of health insurance covers that you can obtain:

1. Statutory Health Insurance (GKV)

Statutory health insurance is the most common cover. Anybody whose annual income falls under ~61,000Euros has to be insured under stautory health insurance.

Before making your choice, it would be worth checking which one suits your needs best. For instance, whether they offer services in English if you do not speak good enough German.

You can find a fully detailed list of their offers and benefits on this site. The page is however only available in German.

Some common providers:-

  • Techniker Krankenkasse (TK)
  • AOK
  • DAK
  • Barmer
Find our comparison of the four here or keep reading about info about Private health insurance.

2. Private health Insurance (PVK)

On the other hand private health insurance is also an option. However, it is important to make sure that you meet the requirements to take up private health insurance.

It is also worth noting that once you opt out of public health insurance it may be quite hard for you to switch back in the future if need be.
Even though private health insurances may offer extra perks and benefits, it may be worth noting that they could also be more expensive.

A good tip would be to get public health insurance then add supplementary private health insurance to cover additional needs you might have that the public insurances don’t offer.

Some private health insurance companies that you can have a look at:

Let's compare

Some Health Insurance providers

TK

Overall Rating

4.8

4.8/5

AOK

Overall Rating

4.0

4/5

BARMER

Overall Rating​

3.7

3.66/5

DAK

Overall Rating​

3.8

3.8/5

* Amount may vary depending on conditions and location. Values quoted are not binding but based on estimated average projections from insurer data at the time of publishing of this page.