Health Insurance

[Transformer man]

Hi all,

Quick question, do you need private health insurance to obtain residency? Have found conflicting information and the search facility all appears to date from before the changes, i.e. no permesso required, came into force.

Any info appreciated!

Thanks,
TM

[Nielo]

HI TM, as far as we know you only need private health insurance if you are not an EU national.

It was a while ago but we certainly didn't need anything of the sort for our residency.

[Angie and Robert]

We didnt need it 16 months ago, and depending on where you are going to live, and the provision of care available I think it is unnecesary, and expensive.
A

[MargaretM]

Just done our residency this morning - was happy to take the EHIC - don't think they knew the difference between that at the one we are supposed to get to cover us for 2 years - are going to get that one but not got round to it yet.

[Marc]

This is an interesting question. The new rules state that you MUST have health cover. Being a resident grants you cover under the state health system, but you can't get Italian cover until you are resident and having UK cover becomes irrelevant once you state that you will become resident in Italy!

Our local Comune took a hard line on this issue with our neighbours (and, refused autocertificazione of income amongst other annoyances) but another Comune nearby told clients of mine that, as EU citizens, all they needed to produce were their passports and a copy of the house deeds.

I'd be very interested to hear from anyone else who has crossed this hurdle.

[Transformer man]

Thanks for the replies folks
Kinda confirms what we knew , that as with many Italian things it varies comune to comune.
If the comune are still speaking to us ( see comune syndicate thread) we plan to ask them and see.
we tried last month but they hadn't got ready for the new rules yet.

[MargaretM]

We are applying for the E106, which I am told will give us cover until 2nd January, 2010, providing we don't leave the UK before 10th October, otherwise it wil only be until January 2009.

Friends of ours saw the same lady in the Commune about six weeks ago, and she insisted they had health cover, and also a copy of his contract of employment, as well as house deeds.

We went this morning, having been told by our agent (who was with us to help) we didn't need private health cover - she did ask about it but when shown our EHIC (I presume it should have been the E106, but she didn't seem to know the difference) she said that was ok.

All she eventually took were copies of our Marriage Certificate, Codice Fiscale's, passports, EHIC's and glanced at the deeds of our house. She did ask a lot of questions - dates of birth, marriage, where born, married etc., but wasn't interested in our bank statements or details of our pensions, which I thought she would.

We now await the visit of the Police. We have been told they come in and check around the house to see visible signs of residency, but again our friends said they arrived - at 7.30 a.m! - asked her a few questions at her gate, then signed off her paperwork. Her husband was back in the UK at the time, but that didn't seem to bother them either.

As you say - Commune to Commune, day to day - this is Italy after all.

[Transformer man]

When we started this process we still needed the PDS, so duly we applied and got the first one ( to be replaced after a couple of months)
They required wedding and birth certs.
I am self employed so had to provide bank statements etc. so far so good.

But because the accounts were in my name( the OH is not a kept woman by any stretch!!) they made me handwrite a statement saying I wouldn't chuck her out!
guess we will need to go through all this again

[Angie and Robert]

Marc is right of course, should have remembered, especially as I passed on his useful post on the subject. So sorry to misinform.We actually had the E106, but this was not effective until we had residency, so there was a grey period until that was done, during that time I had emergency treatment, and spent 4 days in hospital, no charge for that, and no charge for visits to the local doctor.
A