Everything you need to know about free family insurance with SBK
You can insure the following family members free of charge:
Your spouseYour partner in accordance with the German Civil Partnership Act (Lebenspartnerschaftsgesetz)biological and adopted children up to a certain age limitChildren of family-insured childrenStepchildren and grandchildren who live in your household or whose main support is provided by youFoster children, provided you do not care for them professionallyChildren can be covered by family insurance until they reach the age of 23. An extension until their 25th birthday or longer is possible if certain conditions are met. There are no age limits for spouses or registered partners.
You can insure your children free of charge under the following conditions:
Until the age of 23 if they are not working as an employee or self-employed worker Until the age of 25 if they are still in school or university or if they are completing a social or ecological year as part of voluntary civil service and do not receive any remuneration from these activities. If your child is taking part in voluntary civil service abroad and receives remuneration for this work, it depends on which country they are working in as to whether or not they can continue to be covered by the family insurance. Please contact your SBK consultant to discuss this.Beyond the 25th birthday if the child's education has been delayed due to military or voluntary service. An extension beyond the 25th birthday is possible for the entire period of service, but for a maximum of 12 months.Children who are unable to support themselves due to a physical, mental or emotional disability are not subject to any age limits and can continue to be included in the family insurance. The disability must occur while family insurance is in place and must have an unforeseeable duration. There is also an income limit for family members with family insurance.
You can insure your family members free of charge under family insurance if their regular income does not exceed €535 per month. From January 2025, mini-jobbers can even earn up to €556 per month and still benefit from free family insurance.
The income that is taken into account for family insurance includes, for example
Gross pay from employment, including all expected one-off payments such as vacation or Christmas bonusesSeverance pay (redundancy pay) due to termination of the employment relationship Remuneration from working student employmentProfit from self-employmentIncome from renting and leasingIncome from capital assets such as interest, dividends, etc.Pensions, including survivors' and foreign pensionsTaxable maintenance paymentsMost tax-free income, parental allowance, child benefit, housing benefit or amounts for child-raising periods for pensions are not taken into account when assessing whether the income limit for family insurance is exceeded. When determining income, the applicable income-related expenses (individual or flat-rate) can be deducted for each calendar year.
Income that is not earned regularly is also not taken into account. This can be, for example, (short-term) employment that is limited from the outset to no more than three months or 70 working days. In this case, the amount of income is irrelevant for family insurance.
There are restrictions on free family insurance in certain cases.
In addition to the income and age limits for your family members, there are other requirements. Free family insurance is only possible if the family member is primarily resident in Germany and
is not a member of a health and nursing care insurance themselves oris not self-employed as their main occupation oris not exempt from insurance as an employee or civil servant oris not exempt from compulsory health insurance.Your children can be insured under the free family insurance scheme if
your spouse or partner (with a registered civil partnership) does not have statutory health insurance and their regular monthly income does not exceed €6,150 per year oryour own income is higher than that of your spouse or civil partner who does not have statutory health insurance.We need a written application from you for free family insurance for your family members. Your personal SBK consultant will be happy to assist you with the application and answer any questions you may have.
We are legally obliged to regularly check the requirements for family insurance. The information is generally required annually. In the case of children under the age of 15 whose parents are covered by statutory health insurance or in the case of spouses or partners who have reached the age limit for the standard retirement pension, the check is only required every three years.
Even if your circumstances do not change or change only slightly, we need you to provide us with up-to-date and complete information. Therefore, please return the regular query that you receive from us promptly. If we do not receive up-to-date information from you, we will unfortunately have to terminate the free family insurance due to legal regulations. In this case, your family members would have to take out their own insurance subject to contributions.
Please inform us of any changes relating to your family members' education, income, insurance or marital status, for example. Based on this information, we can check for you whether free family insurance is still possible.
Free family insurance ends when the age or income limits are exceeded or the other requirements cease to apply. If your family member starts their own health insurance, for example by taking up employment, family insurance is no longer possible. However, the family member can continue to be insured with SBK. Simply contact us and we will be happy to advise you.
Special rules apply to statutory health insurance when a parent takes parental leave, depending on the insurance status of the parents. Your SBK consultant will be happy to help you.
Yes, we need your details, even if your own SBK membership has ended. The family insurance check is carried out retrospectively and always relates to the time period since the last check.
We always need the health insurance details of your spouse or civil partner (registered civil partnership) when insuring children. Under certain circumstances, it may no longer be possible to co-insure children if the spouse or civil partner has private health insurance. Therefore, please provide the full details of your spouse or partner and their health insurance.
Family insurance can continue if your child meets the age and income requirements. However, if compulsory insurance is part of the job, a separate membership begins.
You can find more information about health insurance for students on the Students page.
In principle, family insurance with the SBK can continue as long as your child's income and age limits for family insurance are not exceeded. In addition, the continuation of family insurance also depends on whether separate insurance cover may exist due to the voluntary service in the country concerned. Please contact us about this. We will be happy to advise you.
Your child's free family insurance ends when they start an apprenticeship or have to take out their own insurance as a student aged 25 or over. In this case, you can find out directly about the options for continued insurance with us on the following pages:
School pupils and traineesStudentsOr speak with your SBK consultant directly. Together we will find the best way for you to stay insured.
You have these advantages if you use the family questionnaire online:
The family questionnaire online is already pre-filled with your personal data and that of your family members with family insurance. You only need to update or add the missing information. This saves you time when completing the form.You can easily upload attachments and certificates. You do not need to send any additional documents later on.The online family questionnaire does not need to be printed out and signed. You can simply save the file.You submit the data to us online via a secure connection. This saves you postage and the way to the post box.You need the online application to add your family members to your family insurance. To do this, you must complete the application online, print it out, sign it and send it to us. Your SBK consultant will be happy to assist you with this.
The online family questionnaire is used to update and check the information of existing family members. We will let you know as soon as we need to request family insurance details from you again. We will also automatically send you a one-time password that you can use to enter all the required information online at familienversicherung.sbk.org.
