Apprenticeship and first job: accident cover through your employer, lower premiums

Accident insurance and health insurance: who pays during an apprenticeship

With your first apprenticeship contract or employment contract, you get a second insurance: compulsory accident insurance under the Accident Insurance Act (UVG). All employees working in Switzerland are insured, explicitly including apprentices, interns and volunteers (Art. 1a para. 1 let. a UVG). Cover starts on your first working day, at the latest when you set off for work (Art. 3 para. 1 UVG).

Your health insurer only covers accidents to the extent that no accident insurance pays for them (Art. 1a para. 2 let. b KVG). If you are fully insured under the UVG, you are therefore paying an accident share to your health insurer for cover you hardly need. You can have this share removed. What matters is how many hours you work:

The 8-hour threshold applies per employer (Art. 13 UVV). Two jobs of 5 hours each do not give you cover against accidents in your free time. Unemployed people entitled to unemployment benefit are also compulsorily insured under the UVG (Art. 1a para. 1 let. b UVG).

Step by step: excluding accident cover from your health insurance

1. Check your working hours. Does your apprenticeship or employment contract state weekly working hours of at least 8 hours? Then you are also insured against non-work-related accidents.
2. Get proof. Your insurer wants evidence that you are fully insured under the UVG (Art. 8 para. 1 KVG). A confirmation from your employer or the apprenticeship contract is usually enough; your insurer will tell you what form it requires.
3. Submit a written request. The suspension starts at the earliest on the first day of the month after your request (Art. 11 para. 1 KVV). It cannot be backdated, so submit the request when your apprenticeship starts.
4. Check your new policy. Your policy and your next bill must say “without accident cover”, and the premium must be lower.
5. Report the end of your job. If your apprenticeship or job ends without a direct follow-on solution, your employer informs you in writing. You must then notify your insurer within one month (Art. 11 para. 2 KVV).

If your apprenticeship starts on 1 August and you submit the request in August, accident cover is suspended from 1 September. Until then, you pay for both covers. Apprentices who are minors submit the request together with their parents, because the parents owe the premiums until the end of the month in which the child turns 18 (Art. 61a para. 1 KVG). The Exclude accident cover tool checks the requirements and prepares the request.

What excluding accident cover saves

Your insurer must reduce the premium for as long as you are compulsorily insured under the UVG, but only by the accident share and by at most 7 % (Art. 91a para. 2 and 4 KVV). How much that is in francs depends on the insurer, the age group and the deductible. Premiums 2026, municipality of Bern (region 1), with and without accident cover; source FOPH:

Age group and deductible	lowest with accident	lowest without accident	median with accident	median without accident
Child (born 2009), deductible CHF 0	CHF 125.00	CHF 116.40	CHF 145.90	CHF 136.10
Young adult (born 2007), deductible CHF 300	CHF 391.85	CHF 364.80	CHF 461.80	CHF 431.00
Young adult (born 2007), deductible CHF 2,500	CHF 263.55	CHF 245.35	CHF 335.60	CHF 312.90

In each row, the lowest offers with and without accident cover are the same product from the same insurer. There, excluding accident cover saves CHF 8.60 (child), CHF 27.05 (CHF 300 deductible) and CHF 18.20 (CHF 2,500 deductible) a month. The median values belong to different offers and only show the order of magnitude. The FOPH publishes the premiums for the following year at the end of September; until they are released, we calculate with the 2026 premiums. You can compare your own premiums with and without accident cover in the premium calculator.

Sample calculation: a sports accident during an apprenticeship

Example with fictitious people. Jan, born in 2007, is doing an apprenticeship in Bern with 42 hours a week. He is insured with the cheapest offer with a CHF 300 deductible and has excluded accident cover. He injures his knee playing football. Treatment and physiotherapy cost CHF 3,000, and he cannot work for 10 days.

Excluding accident cover changes nothing about Jan’s protection, because accident insurance pays first for accidents anyway. It only saves premiums for cover that would otherwise exist twice.

What accident insurance pays and what it does not

• Treatment costs: For work-related and non-work-related accidents, the accident insurer pays for treatment, without deductible and without retention fee. The bill goes directly to the accident insurer.
• Daily allowance: 80 % of the insured earnings if you are completely unable to work, from the third day after the day of the accident (Art. 16 para. 2, Art. 17 para. 1 UVG).
• Premiums: Your employer pays for work-related accident insurance. You pay the premium for non-work-related accidents; your employer deducts it from your salary and may cover more in your favour (Art. 91 para. 1–3 UVG). On your payslip, it is often shown as “NBU”.
• Illness: Accident insurance only pays for accidents and occupational diseases. For illnesses, your health insurer remains responsible, with deductible and retention fee.

Salary during illness: what your employer pays

Your health insurer pays for treatment, not for lost salary. If you are ill, your employer continues to pay your salary for a limited time if the employment relationship has lasted more than three months or was entered into for more than three months (Art. 324a para. 1 CO). An apprenticeship meets this from the start. In the first year of service it is at least three weeks, after that an appropriately longer period (Art. 324a para. 2 CO). These rules on continued payment of salary also apply to apprenticeship contracts (Art. 355 CO). Many companies have daily sickness allowance insurance instead; what it pays is set out in your employment contract or the collective employment agreement.

After your apprenticeship: changing jobs, gaps, military service

When your job ends

UVG cover ends on the 31st day after the day on which your entitlement to at least half your salary ends (Art. 3 para. 2 UVG). With extended cover by agreement, you can extend it with your employer’s accident insurer for up to six months (Art. 3 para. 3 UVG). This is useful if you take a break or travel between finishing your apprenticeship and starting your first job.

As soon as UVG cover ends wholly or partly, your health insurer automatically covers accidents again (Art. 8 para. 2 KVG). Your employer must inform you of this in writing before you leave, and you must inform your insurer within one month (Art. 11 para. 2 KVV). If you do not report it, the insurer may claim the accident share of the premium plus default interest for the whole period (Art. 10 para. 2 KVG). If you move straight to a new employer with at least 8 hours a week, the exclusion remains in place.

Basic military training and military service

If you are covered by military insurance for more than 60 consecutive days, your compulsory health insurance is suspended (Art. 3 para. 4 KVG); during this time, military insurance covers illness and accidents. The authorities responsible for your service will inform you about the procedure (FOPH, Priminfo).

Further relief during your apprenticeship

• Premium subsidy: Apprentices are in education. From the year in which you turn 19, the canton must reduce your premium by at least 50 % for lower and middle incomes (Art. 65 para. 1bis KVG). How it calculates income and whether your parents’ income counts is up to the canton. You can find your canton’s rules under Premium subsidies.
• Hospital contribution: Young adults in education do not pay the CHF 15 daily contribution for hospital stays (Art. 104 para. 2 KVV). This exemption ends when you complete your apprenticeship.
• Deductible in your first job: With your first full salary, the question of how much of the costs you can bear yourself often changes too. You can choose from CHF 300 to CHF 2,500; the retention fee is capped at CHF 700 a year (Art. 103 KVV). The deductible calculator works out the break-even point between a low and a high deductible using the premiums for your municipality.

Common mistakes

• Waiting for accident cover to be excluded automatically. The insurer only suspends it on a written request and at the earliest from the following month (Art. 11 para. 1 KVV). Every month without a request costs you the full accident share.
• Excluding accident cover with a small side job. With under 8 hours a week for one employer, you are not insured in your free time through the job.
• Not reporting the end of your apprenticeship. The insurer may claim the accident share plus default interest (Art. 10 para. 2 KVG).
• Confusing daily sickness allowance with basic health insurance. Your health insurer does not pay your salary when you are ill. Continued payment of salary comes from your employer or its daily allowance insurance.
• Overlooking the gap after your apprenticeship. Between finishing your apprenticeship and a new job, you need either your health insurer’s accident cover or extended cover by agreement.

How to take over your own health insurance at 18 is explained in the article Your first own health insurance; what applies during your studies is covered in the article Health insurance for students. If you go abroad after your apprenticeship, you will find the rules in the article Gap year and language stays. All articles for this stage of life are in the topic area Young adults. The health insurer profiles show the insurers’ key figures.