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Health insurance
Health insurance🎓 Health Insurance in Germany: What You Need to Know
If you're coming to study in Germany, you must have valid health insurance. It’s not just a formality — it’s a legal requirement.
⚠️ No valid insurance = no student status
We strongly recommend the German public health insurance as it covers you in all cases and emergencies, regardless of the treatment costs, be it in inpatient or outpatient treatment, and it is not limited in time.
📅 Important: You must decide within the first 3 Months of enrollment
As a Bachelor’s or Master’s student, you have 3 months from enrollment to finalize your insurance. After that:
🡒 You can’t switch to another insurance type (i.e. from public to private or from private to public)
🡒 If you haven’t chosen by the 3rd month, you’ll be automatically and retroactively (as of the first day of enrollment) enrolled in German public insurance
✅ German Public Health Insurance
If you are not from an EU|EEA|EFTA or contract country (see next point), we highly recommend signing up for German public health insurance. Here’s why:
🩺 Covers everything — doctor visits, hospital stays, emergencies — no matter how expensive as long as medically necessary
👨👩👧👦 Family-friendly — kids & spouse are covered at no extra cost
💳 No surprise payments — doctors bill the insurance directly and no need to file refund claims
💶 Set price — the monthly contribution is similar across all public health insurance providers
🔒 Important: you must keep it active the whole time you're studying, even if you:
🡒 take a semester off (leave of absence)
🡒 go abroad for exchange
🡒 do a mandatory internship abroad or relocate abroad while studying
As a Bachelor or Master student from outside the EU|EEA|EFTA or contract country (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Turkey and Tunis), you are legally obliged to insure with a German public health insurance.
Under special conditions, you may apply for dispensation from the obligation to insure with German public insurance. For more information see the private health insurance information below.
EU|EAA|EFTA or contract country
If you’re from the 🇪🇺 EU | EEA | Switzerland or a contract country 🤝 Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Turkey, Tunisia 🤝, you do not have to be insured in Germany, provided that you have the European health insurance card (EHIC) or the insurance form (in your local language and German) from your home country.
You can use your European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) or insurance certificate from your country.
💡 Heads up: If you work (even a mini-job), you’ll need to switch to German public insurance — but you can switch back when your student job contract ends.
⚠️ Private Insurance
Private health insurance companies are profit-oriented and may deny membership for a number of reasons. ⚠️ They have serious limitations:
❌ You might have to pay upfront and will get only partial refunds
❌ No free family co-insurance
❌ They might reject your refund application or cancel your insurance contract
If you would like to have a private health insurance (from Germany or from your country), you must apply for a dispensation from the obligation to insure with the public insurance. Getting a dispensation from public insurance is hard because your private insurance must:
🡒 Cover everything (no limit to the amount covered)
🡒 Be valid for your entire study period
➡️ If you still want to try private insurance, please make sure to apply for a dispensation (link is external).
📲 Apply Now – fast & easy online for public insurance
If you need a visa to come to Germany, you can apply for complimentary incoming insurance (required for your visa application) and German public health insurance in advance and use the confirmation when applying for your student visa with a German embassy in your home country. To do so, you can use services such as Expatrio (link is external) or Coracle (link is external), which provide this combo insurance.
If you do not need a visa (visa-free, non-EU|EEA|EFTA country), you can apply for insurance during orientation week.
If you’re from the EU | EEA | Switzerland or a contract country 🤝 Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Turkey, Tunisia 🤝, please bring your European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) or your bilingual insurance certificatate and submit it to digitally here (link is external). Please note that if your EHIC or insurance certificate is limited in time, you must always provide an up-to-date one once the old one expires through the link.
Two German public health insurance companies are present on campus:
Techniker Krankenkasse (TK)
AOK Bremen / Bremerhaven
🧠 PhD student or student over 30? You’ll need a special rate and might not be eligible for public insurance — please contact the insurance providers directly once on campus.
Doctors around Vegesack
| Category | Name and address | directions |
|---|---|---|
| Dentist | Dr. Dietmar Schulte am Hülse(link is external)
| map(link is external) |
| Dentist | Mostafa Shirazi
| |
| General Medicine | Dr. med. Oliver Kahlen
| map(link is external) |
| General Medicine | Dr. med. Hans Martin Noltenius
| map(link is external) |
| Gynecologist | Dr. med. Christa Goecke(link is external)
| map(link is external) |
| Gynecologist | Bettina Bosselmann
| map(link is external) |
| Dermatologist | Dr. med. Ingrid Böhnke
| map(link is external) |
| ENT Specialist (Ear, Nose & Throat) | Dr. med. Hans Udo Homoth(link is external)
| map(link is external) |
| ENT Specialist (Ear, Nose & Throat) | Dr. med. Hermann Eibach
| map(link is external) |
| Eye | Beate Zschausch
| map(link is external) |
| Hospital (only for emergency cases or in holidays when you will not be able to consult your house doctor) | Klinikum Bremen-Nord gGmbH(link is external)
| map(link is external) |
Hospital Bremen North
How to get there:
From Vegesack take bus no. 90 in the direction of Blumenthal – Neuenkirchen or bus no. 95 in the direction of Blumenthal – Bockhorn. Approximately in 12 minutes you will reach Klinikum Bremen-Nord station.
There is a regional train runs every half an hour from BF Vegesack to BF Farge. From BF Vegesack, it will take 6 minutes to reach BF Klinikum Nord station.
Doctors in Reeder-Bischoff-Str. 28(link is external)
How to get there:
This building situated at the entrance to the Vegesack pedestrian zone and thus within 5 minutes of walking from Vegesack railway station you will reach there. From Vegesack station walk
Doctors in Gerhard-Rohlfs Strasse(link is external)
How to get there:
Take any bus from Bf Vegesack in the opposite direction of JUB and get off Gerhard-Rohlfs Strasse (first stop after Bahnhof Vegesack). Walk on Gerhard-Rohlfs Strasse (pedestrian zone with shops) in 2 min you will find two Apotheke (dispensary), in between these dispensaries you will see doctors nameplates.
It is recommended that before visiting a doctor you always ask for an appointment over the telephone.
Excuse from academic obligations
Official excuses from academic obligations will be granted for no other reasons than sickness, health or personal emergency.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic our submission's policy has changed. We are accepting the yellow certificate (Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung) and submissions can be done electronically via Campusnet. Please follow these instructions:
How to submit a sick certificate via Campusnet.
- Log in to campusnet https://campusnet.jacobs-university.de/(link is external)
- On the left corner, click on ‘My Requests’
- Click on ‘Start’ next to ‘Request to be Excused’
- Fill the information and upload your yellow sick certificate
- Click on ‘Check for completeness and submit data’ once you are done
Once we’ve received and reviewed your excuse, we will inform the instructor(s) via email about your absence.
There are strict rules in order to be officially excused. You can find the regulations in the policies.
Regardless of the reason for their absence, students must inform the Instructor on Record before the beginning of the examination or class/lab session that they will not be able to attend. The day after the excuse ends, students must contact the Instructor of Record.
Students have the right to take one make-up exam within the deadline for students to submit materials for incompletes as published in the Academic Calendar. Failure to do so will lead to a continued incomplete of the module until the missing requirements are fulfilled or definitively failed.
Once the medical excuse form has been reviewed, the instructors will be informed about the absence and students would need to follow up and coordinate for the make-up, if applicable. The university reserves the right to ask for a second medical opinion and/or to reject the medical excuse form.