When enrolling as a doctoral student at Trier University, you will need to provide evidence of health insurance coverage. How you are insured and whether you need to buy insurance yourself depends on how your doctoral studies or your research stay are financed.

Scholarship 

If you are granted a scholarship for your doctoral studies or research stay, you need to check whether your scholarship covers health insurance. As most scholarships do not cover health insurance, you need to take care of your health insurance yourself. In this case, we recommend to first check with the health insurance company from your home country whether they provide sufficient coverage for a long-term stay in Germany. If they do not, you need to buy health insurance from a German insurance company.

There are two basic types of health insurance companies in Germany – statutory and private. Generally speaking, monthly premiums for private health care are higher than those for statutory health care. However, since the monthly contributions for doctoral students are about the same among the two types (around 180€/month), it is often recommended to buy private insurance as this type provides larger coverage and services. However, you are free to choose between buying statutory or private health care.

Apart from buying regular German health insurance, another option is to buy travel insurance for a stay in Germany for a period of up to 60 months. 

Furthermore, the DAAD offers group health insurance for international PhD students. 

Employment at Trier University

If you are employed at Trier University or any other external institution or firm (with an income exceeding 450€), you will receive an employment contract and will thus automatically be given social security coverage.

When being employed, the following social security coverages are mandatory in Germany: 

• Health insurance
• Pension insurance
• Unemployment insurance
• Accident insurance
• Nursing care insurance

The insurance premiums are paid by the employer as well as the employee proportionally. The employee’s share is deducted from their gross income. Depending on the income, the employee can chose between statutory and private health care coverage.

For further questions, e.g. whether your local health insurance company provides adequate health care coverage, whether you can be exempt from the German health insurance or whether premiums paid in Germany can be charged against premiums in your home country, please refer to the internet portal “Researchers in motion”: Euraxess.