EPIC Guide

Insurance

As a resident of Switzerland, you need to be insured against at least illness, accidents, and fire hazards. You also should have civil liability and household insurance, without which finding accommodation is essentially impossible. This page describes these insurances and some more.

Health

There are two kinds of health insurance: the mandatory one, sometimes referred to as “LAMal” due to the name of the law, and “complementary” insurance.

Mandatory

Mandatory insurance is provided by a number of providers but covers the exact same things. You can change providers every year, and you can choose basic options such as the deductible amount.

As an EPFL PhD student, the only way around getting mandatory health insurance is if you come from a country that provides you health insurance unconditionally (e.g. Bulgaria), in which case you can send the state a copy of your insurance card and get exempted from having to buy a Swiss one. Unlike ETH PhD students, we cannot benefit from student / reduced insurance prices.

Use the official health insurance price calculator to find the cheapest providers and their options. This is government-run, there is no point in using any of the private comparers such as comparis.ch for this as they are likely trying to sell you something.

The EPFL Student Affairs Website provides detailed information about health insurance.

Complementary

Complementary insurance is less regulated and offers all kinds of benefits at all kinds of price points, such as being in a private room if you have to be in a hospital as opposed to a shared room, or covering specific kinds of treatment and even gym memberships.

One kind of complementary insurance that is cheap and most likely useful to any PhD student is “worldwide” coverage. While the mandatory insurance covers emergencies worldwide, the amount it covers is not enough for countries such as the United States.

Accident

EPFL provides you with accident insurance, as is legally required of employers. The only action you need to take is to explicitly tell your mandatory health insurance provider that you are employed, otherwise you will pay for accident insurance from them as well for no use.

The Student Affairs Website provides detailed information about accident insurance. More information (in French only) can be found on the Human Resources website.

Fire hazards

Cantonal agency ECA insures you against fire hazards, which is mandatory. You will receive a letter from them after settling in, asking to declare the value of your goods.

Typically, it is not worth under-estimating the value of your items & furniture, since the yearly cost of this insurance is really low. There is a minimum anyway below which you’ll pay a fixed amount, ECA will even write to you if your declared amount is way below that minimum.

Civil liability and household

These cover you in case you mess up and in case you have household issues such as water leaks, respectively. Elvia is a good provider due to being entirely online.