Wunderbar! You have arrived in Germany!
After you have arrived in Germany you will need to activate your TK public health insurance. Before you are ready to activate your insurance on your User Portal, you need to have completed the following two steps:
1. Register at university (Immatrikulationbescheinigung)
For your enrollment you will need to provide your university with your ‘TK insurance certificate’ which is available from the ‘Documents’ section of your User Portal. Once you have successfully enrolled, your university will give you your Certificate of Enrollment. You will need this document to activate your insurance.
2. Open a current account at any German bank (Girokonto)
This account will be used for your monthly health insurance payments. You can read our recommendations of Current Account providers here: https://www.expatrio.com/current-account
Once you have completed these two steps, you are ready to activate your TK insurance!
3. Activate your insurance via your Expatrio user portal
Step 1
In order to activate your Public Insurance (TK) you must login to the Expatrio Portal and select 'Health Insurance'. You will see a button that requests you to 'Activate' - please click on it.
Step 2
Once the activation page has opened, click NEXT to proceed.
Step 3
On the next page, you will have to provide your German address and your phone number. Be careful when doing this, as TK will send you letters by post. It is important that the letters reach you, so the address has to be provided correctly.
Tips:
- The street name can not be longer than 23 characters. If it is, change ‘Straße’ to ‘Str’ for example
- Please don't use ‘Street’ or ‘Strasse’ - use ‘Str’ or ‘Straße’ instead
- Put the building number under ‘Street Number’, not after the street name
- If you have a room number, add it to the 'Optional C/O address field', writing ‘Zi.’ before it
- If your name is not showing on your postbox, add the name that is there to the 'Optional C/O address' field, writing ‘C/O’ before it
Under the address please confirm your phone number as well. Please do not worry, if you don't have a German phone number yet you can simply skip this.
Once you are done adding your contact details, click on 'NEXT' to go to the next page.
Step 4
On this page, you will have to confirm your current account details. Your monthly health insurance fees will be deducted from this bank account by direct debit.
Please read the warnings carefully and provide the IBAN and BIC code accordingly.
Once you have added your bank account details, hit the checkbox underneath to confirm that the IBAN and BIC is correct, and that these details belong to a bank account under your name.
Once done, click on 'NEXT' to go to the next page.
Step 5
- This can not be an Admission letter (Zulassung), Anmeldung/Meldebestätigung, or a student card
- The document should confirm
- your name as the student’s name
- the Matriculation number (Matrikelnummer)
- the semester you are currently enrolled in (Wintersemester/Sommersemester)
- and the academic semester (Fachsemester)
Note: The desired insurance start date on your activation form should match the Semester start date on your enrollment form.
Once done, just hit the 'ACTIVATE' button at the bottom - with that your health insurance activation request will be submitted.
4. Wait for the activation to be complete
We will check your activation request and reach out to you if any clarification is needed. Once all is clear we will send your data to TK.
From this stage the activation process usually takes 2-4 weeks. If you have any questions during this time, please contact the Expatrio Service Team.
Note: You will be covered by the TK insurance during this waiting period too, even though you will not have your EHIC card yet. If you need to go to the doctor, you can take your TK insurance certificate with you as proof of your insurance.
TK will then reimburse you for the cost of the care you receive after the activation of your insurance.
Once the activation process is complete, TK will send a letter to your German address confirming the activation of your insurance (hence the importance of providing your address properly!).
5. TK Card
After receiving your 'Welcome Letter', TK will also send you another letter asking you to send them a photo for your EHIC card. Once you have sent this photo, you should expect to receive the card within 10-14 days.