Be prepared when you and your family have medical needs.

Health insurance for expats in the Netherlands

If you’re looking for the most suitable Dutch health insurance, you’ve come to the right place! We work with multiple health insurers and compare on both coverage and pricing to provide you with suitable health insurance. Please feel free to contact us at any time for personal advice.

The Dutch health insurance

When you live or work in the Netherlands you have four months to apply for health insurance. By law, everybody has to have basic health insurance. The start date of your health insurance will always be the day you registered or have started working in the Netherlands.

How does the Dutch health insurance work?

The basic health insurance is statutory insurance and reimburses the costs for basic healthcare, such as general practitioner, pharmacy, and hospital stays, and is a statutory requirement. The government determines which reimbursements form part of the basic health insurance and sets up the own excess of €385,- a year (2019). This is a contribution you have to pay yourself in case of an insurance claim. Seeing your general practitioner are excluded from your own excess and therefore always paid by the insurer. For example some treatments and medicines are not. You can choose to add a voluntary own excess to your mandatory excess. This will reduce your insurance premium and will be possible in steps of € 100,- to a maximum of € 500,-.  Children under the age of 18 do not have an own excess and there is no extra premium to insure them on your health insurance.

There are two types of basic health insurance: in-kind policies (Natura) and refund policies (restitutie). With an in-kind policy you are opting to go to care providers with whom insurers have agreements on price and quality. If you go to a non-contracted care provider, it is possible you do not get the entire bill reimbursed. The reimbursement is in this case approximately around 50 to 80 percent.

With a refund policy in contrast to the in-kind policy you have freedom of healthcare choice. You are entitled to a higher reimbursement for healthcare from care providers who do not have a contract with insurers. That means you can go to any care provider you want. Because you can go to any care provider, it is possible you have to pay the bill in advance and declare it at your health insurer later. The refund policy has a slightly higher premium.

Not all healthcare is covered by the basic insurance. It is optional to take out the additional insurance to cover, for example, dentists, vaccinations, physiotherapy, alternative cures, eyeglasses, and contact lenses. In contrast to the basic health insurance, insurers can refuse to accept you, or can ask about your health before accepting you for the additional insurance.

Only once a year you are able to change between health insurance providers. This is possible between mid-November and the end of December. You have until the first of January to cancel your health insurance. From then you have until the first of February to arrange new health insurance. The new health insurance will then starts with a retroactive effect from the first of January.

Let us advise you on the best health insurance

The differences between health insurance premiums can be quite substantial. We are certified to advise you and your family to select health insurance that meet your requirements and needs. We work with multiple health insurers and search and compare a wide range of policies, to find the best health insurance for you.