Hi all.
Can’t find anything on SF on up to date info on top up Mutuelles
I am 82. The quotes I am getting are body blows.
I have a permanent Health Number from CPAM because of the S1.
The choice I had was live in a bedsit with no garden in the UK with the wonderful (in my experience) NHS
or
live in a lovley 3 bed house with lovely garden in France paying an arm and a leg for meds and GP visits.
I need an endoscopy but can’t have one - too scared of the bill
thanks for any help
Pamela of Amboise
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Speak to @fabien , whose contact details are at the head of the Survive France forum. You can telephone him directly.
He speaks perfect English and gives the closest possible personal attention to concerns re insurance, including ‘old-age’ mutuelles.
I’m confident hé will help you work out an affordable mutuelle, so you can go ahead with the necessary investigative procedures. If you have internet access and can use it you can search under his name as above including the term ‘Assurances’.
Are you sure you need top-up insurance for your investigations? I would have thought it unlikely.
Bon courage.
Hope this helps you.
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You shouldn’t be paying an arm and a leg for meds and GP visits if you have an S1? Maximum should be 30% of the cost and if you are on a low income or have one of the specific chronic disease then should be no more than 1€ or so.
And as long as you go to a consultant who is secteur 1, then an endoscopy should be quite a modest cost. It’s a quick procedure done as a day patient, so really shouldn’t cost very much. You can ask the secretariat when you book and they will tell you exactly how much it will be.
(I’ve just found the cost of a colonoscopy I had last year, and it was 192€ + anaesthetist of which I should have paid 35% which would have been 80€ (because it was as a result of the cancer screening I paid nothing) And that is a more complicated procedure so an endoscopy should be less)
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Hi, these guys are pretty good https://www.insurance.fr/
Have a quick look at their duck insurance on the sidebar, it encouraged me to go with them 
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Duck insurance ???
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Honest, it’s funny. But they do a reasonably priced health insurance.
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Be careful, it sounds like quackery.
Try Soficas in Bordeaux. We pay €170 a month for 2 of us
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Ouch! Are you over 75 or is that a 300% cover one? As seems pretty expensive to me. We paid 130€ for 150% cover, but have now ditched it as was too expensive!
We are Credit Agricole clients and found their top up relatively cheap and no questionnaire nor pre-conditions…
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I understand where you come from. What about doing AirB&B with one of your rooms? I have a friend who does this for the same reason. If you’re active this might work well. You just need to make their breakfast and do the laundry. Or if you have land, offer camping. This should pay for an economic mutuelle? Just a thought - but I don’t know your level of energy, so forgive me in advance if there are complications for you on this.
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To set up as a chambre d’hôtes, which is what AirBnB is, you have to register with the marie, get a SIRET number, pay the taxe de séjour, make sure your house insurance firm are aware, and pay tax on the income if it is more than 760€ a year. If you are providing breakfast you have to respect hygiene regulations. Depending on circumstances and if it is more than an occasional thing you can also become liable for the CFE, cotisation foncière des enterprises. Or of course you can do it all under the table and annoy the hell out of people who do it professionally.
If someone is on a seriously low income they should qualify for 100 per cent cover under CMU-C.
If they’re on a slightly higher income they should qualify for help towards the cost of a mutuelle.
Sometimes it’s just a question of priorities.
Yes, my friend does that and has done as you say, though she’s French and knows the ins and outs well, but found it quite simple to do - but 760 Euros is fine for paying the mutuelle. And I was thinking of the needs of the lady rather than a business. We’re in French life and that’s just how it operates. It’s naturally an effort at the beginning, but that is true of everything we do in life. It’s just as it is - but for someone not wanting to make a big thing of it, I think it works quite well. That sum would pay about 60 E a month. No doubt it wouldn’t be earned regularly, it might come in one go. Even if not enough earned for the mutuelle at least there would be enough to pay for the one-off medical service that the lady wants. Small things sometimes help and I had the feeling, in the context of reading her story, that just a little help was needed and not a professional business, nor that there was any competitively involved.
We know about them, they are great people indeed but Generali is a company we tend to avoid as their premium are too unstable over time AND we’ve had really bad experience on claim management where they literrally shut down their claim processing for a couple weeks back in mid-2018 can you imagine that??? I told them I’ll spread the world as this was simply outrageous so here I am, spreading the world 
But the people that work there are great this is true (very nice and some are even English native).
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Sofica medical plan are quite good indeed, one of my main competitor where I’m happy to say the competition is healthy (although they have only one plan to offer but hey, we have to have some competitive edge don’t we?)
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You never have any questionnaire with Mutuelles or top-up health insurance in France. Banks are quite good when it comes to “cheap” policies (car, house, health). The only limit is their knowledge of the insurance industry (they are bankers not insurers or brokers) which sometimes can be a bit edgy (dodgy conversion of British NCD, limited advised due to lack of understanding how the French medical system works - like most French people to be fair - or overlooking some information for the house) but for the “average Joe” their offers are great and usually it’s hard to give a bad or a wrong advise when it comes to a top-up health insurance
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Not sure if at 82 years old this would be a viable option!
Exactly… And also when one has a chronic condition or serious disease (cancer, heart attack, stroke, etc.) then this is 100% refunded as well thanks to the “ALD” (Affection Longue Durée - long term illness).
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