However, it has taken about this long to get my health insurance re-activated here... Why, you would ask... Well, there's a couple of reasons, actually...
- If you move from any European country back to Belgium, you have to be able to prove you were insured in that country for the time you were there. Simple, you might say, but no... Put in about 5 requests to social security in France, never got an answer... (they can track you down wherever you are in the world using intelligence & stuff, but that, they aren't able to find out, whether you were insured in another country... Weird, no?!?)
- Secondly, as a Belgian citizen, when you arrive back in Belgium, you have to prove that you have been re-employed here. First question that came to mind: what if I don't want to work anymore? Does that mean that I don't have the right to health insurance????
- OK, now... the proof you need to provide is not that simple: it's not sufficient that you show them your new contract, no! You have to have a form filled in by your employer saying that they employ you (my contract says that same thing, no?!?), and have to send that form back to the health insurance.
- However, sending that form back to them, does not mean that they won't lose it... Mine was lost about 3 times, hence the 2 years I was without health insurance...
If all these steps aren't enough already, and even if the forms were provided to them at the soonest possible moment, that would still have meant that the first 6 months after returning to Belgium, I would still not have had health insurance, because there's what they call "6 months waiting time" before you can get re-insured...
But, as you can see, it can take up to 2 years!!!! Luckily I didn't get a weird disease or break all the bones in my body these last 2 years, I would've been broke in the meantime, I guess...
But anyway, just to warn you... Belgium is still a bureaucratic country!!
1 comment:
Great work.
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