Is your mutuelle any good?

I'm actually watching this with interest/concern as I saw on a mum's group today that a dental brace can cost up to €3,000 or €4,000. When I took Twerp for a check up last month the dentist said that apparently he has a small (and I mean small as in unnoticeable apart from apparently to a dentist) and she told me that in January she would refer me to an orthodontist. I had envisioned €400 or €500 perhaps so the thought of thousands was terrifying. All my insurance is currently with Axa but for budgetary reasons I have basic emergency health cover so I had intended to expand it to include dental to cover Twerp. Now I'm thinking that is simply throwing money away if they are reluctant to reimburse any dental fees?

I've just organised today to switch from my AXA policy to Credit Agricole at next renewal - you have to give a minimum notice period - I think its 2 months and letter must be sent by Lettre Recommendee however CA are going to do that for us. I've saved 80 euro a month by switching at next policy date. I wish I'd taken action sooner.

Mike, that is what we had and when we appealed they still refused with no explanation, so end of the contract year we changed to Allianz and have never had a refusal or any problems.

Andrew, our Mutuelle with AXA had dental cover and also optics, but AXA just kept refusing the claims and sending the demands back as refused.

I've been with the GAN since the '80s and they've been excellent.

Mike, don't forget that nearly all mutuelle offer varying levels of cover - it's for you to choose what you want (mine offer 7 different levels of cover, the maaf for my employee offers the new legel minimum plus the option to pick and choose which add-ons you want. ;-)

We were with AXA for several years and although they paid out without questions for my life threatening medical bills and same for my wife, when it came to dental work and glasses they just flatly refused and so we were left with a 900 Euro bill for the dental work and 450 Euros for the glasses. We switched to Prevoir and they have been excellent and 30 Euros a month cheaper than AXA. Yesterday my wife had a blood test done and by the time we arrived home she had an e-mail from Prevoir telling her that their portion had already been paid into her account...excellent and so shortly we will also be switching all our assurances away from AXA. When someone scuffed our car whilst we were out shopping, AXA said as there was no other party available to claim against we must pay the first 1500 Euros of any claim......80Euros a month and just excuses as to why they will not pay out....

I should add to the comment below, that although Pacifica did'nt contact us, Credit Agricole did. But only to ask if there was anything they could help us with. Needless to say, i will not be changing banks either.

In the last 6 months, my wife has had 2 knee replacements following an accident, and i have had 3 heart operations following a heart attack, including a triple bypass, and 3 gastric operations following a ruptured ulcer, with all the aftercare at home, and the ambulance journeys and medication that entails. We have been insured with Pacifica through Credit Agricole, and we have not had one query, or even been contacted. They have just paid any factures, quickly and without any fuss. I would'nt change to another Mutuelle. Excellent service.

Thank you Liz, it's always a pleasure.
Soficas also reduce premiums for good results; we call it the "Expat mentality".
In general our clients claim less than the average French national (bags and bags of medicine) that’s why we can negotiate better prices with the different companies.

Just signed up with Soficas they appear to be excellent, we were recommended by some friends of ours and have an english speaking help line and English speaking reps who come out. One thing that really surprised us was that they were able to offer my 93 yr old mum top up insurance for €100/per month well under what we had been quoted by any other company by €200!!

We changed from Previfrance to Thelem this year and have been quite satisfied so far.

We changed because Thelem offer money back if you don't use them. So for instanceif you aren't that ill you can get some of your money back. They will give you up to 50% of your cotisations back at the end of each year. We figure that if we do use it, ie. If we are ill a lot we are quids in anyway. Their site is here.

http://www.thelem-assurances.fr/mutuelle-sante

Try MGC they have good dental and optician deals I have had no complaints so far and have been with them for several years. The secu has just done a deal with a lot of mutuelle's to reduce the rates you pay if you are retired and worked under the french system, our monthly for two has dropped from 126€ to 44€.

Just having a look Andrew - ta!

le refuge mutualiste aveyronnais have always looked after us and are competitive. You don't have to be in the aveyron either ;-)

Otherwise the maaf who I use for lots of things including the mutuelle for my employee. I use the Crédit Agricole too (Pacifica) sometimes they're great, sometimes not!

Lingfield is probably the better bet, although my form on the geegees would make that questionable.

We changed, fortunately before my woes began. We had the same thing, a dental bill not covered but nobody willing to give us any reason why. Although we used the right to appeal against the decision the policy said we had, they refused to put the appeal through and just gave us blank refusals. So we changed from one A to another A, x to l, to give that way. Perhaps the fact we know two of the three people at the agency we bought through socially helps, but thus far we have had nothing refused since the change.