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Expatrio Help center

All of your Germany related questions answered in one place.

How do I activate my TK public health insurance?

Dominic Otto
Updated

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:

 

  • Register at university
    Once you have successfully enrolled at your German university, they will give you your Certificate of Enrollment (Immatrikulationsbescheinigung). You will need this document to activate your health insurance. Please remember that the Acceptance letter is not an Enrollment certificate; you must register with your university and get your Certificate of Enrollment (Immatrikulationsbescheinigung). 

 

  • If you do not have the Expatrio Bank Account*, you must provide another SEPA (Single European Payment Area) account to activate your Health Insurance.

The Expatrio Bank Account* we offer will be automatically opened during the blocked account activation process if you are eligible!

 

Submit your activation request on your Expatrio portal

Once you have your certificate of enrollment (Immatrikulationsbescheinigung) from your university and your bank account details you can submit your health insurance activation request on your Expatrio portal.

Note: To be eligible for the value package benefit, please make sure that you are activating your TK insurance via your Expatrio portal, please follow the below steps:

 

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. Be careful when doing this, as TK will send you letters by post. The letters must 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.’ in front of it (i.e. Zi. 123)
  • If your name is not showing on your postbox, add the name that is on it to the 'Optional C/O address' field, writing ‘C/O’ before it (i.e. C/O Meier)
  • If you need to updated your German address after activation, please contact TK directly.

Please confirm your phone number under the address as well. Please do not worry if you don't have a German phone number yet; you can simply skip this.

Once you have added your contact details, click on 'NEXT' to proceed to the next page.

 

Step 4

Expatrio opens a free German Bank Account* automatically during the blocked account activation process! So, when you consent to open the Expatrio Bank account, you will not be asked to enter any IBAN details of a SEPA (Single European Payment Area).

But if you do not have a Blocked Account with Expatrio, or if you did not consent to the opening of the Bank account, or due to any other reason that you do not have an Expatrio Bank account, you will be asked to give your SEPA (Single European Payment Area) account details at this step.

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 are correct and belong to a bank account under your name.

Once done, click 'NEXT' to go to the next page.

 

Step 5

You are now on the last page!
All that is left to do is confirming your arrival date and desired insurance start date and uploading your Certificate of Enrollment ('Immatrikulationsbescheinigung' or ‘Studienbescheinigung’) from your German university.
 
When choosing the document to upload, please pay attention to the below:
  • 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.

 

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.

 

Note: You will be covered by the TK insurance during this waiting period too, even though you will not have your health insurance 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!).

 

 

 

TK Card

After receiving your 'Welcome Letter', TK will also send you another letter asking you to send them a photo for your health insurance card. Once you have sent this photo, you should expect to receive the card within 10-14 days.

 

*Banking products are provided by AION Bank.

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