When to arrange your DNV health insurance
Too early and you are paying for cover while you are still at home. Too late and it is the thing everyone is waiting on. The useful answer is not a number of weeks — it is a sequence, run against your own dates.
First, the number this page will not give you
People arrive here wanting to know how long the application itself takes. We are not going to tell you, and the reason is worth a paragraph rather than a silent omission.
Processing times are decided by the office handling your file. They differ between posts, they differ between periods, and a figure without a date and a source attached is somebody's anecdote wearing a suit. We would rather say that than publish a number you might plan around.
Ask the office you are applying through, and ask them recently. That is the only answer with your name on it.
What this page can do is the half that is actually in your control: deciding when to arrange your own cover, given whatever that answer turns out to be.
Early and late both cost something, and they are not the same cost
Too early costs money. Cover that starts while you are still at home is cover you are paying for and not using, and if the application slides, it keeps running.
Too late costs time, and time is the one you cannot buy back. Arranging cover is not instant: there are health questions to answer, there may be follow-up, and the insurer makes a decision on its own schedule rather than yours. If there is anything in your history to declare, that is not a two-day step — what happens when you declare a condition sets out why.
So the two risks are not symmetrical. Being a month early is an expense. Being a week late can be the thing holding up everything else, at the point where you have the least room to move.
The sequence, against your own dates
Work backwards from the date you need the evidence, not forwards from today.
- Find out whether you need a policy at all. Not every applicant does. Doing this first costs an hour and can save the whole exercise — do I need private insurance at all?.
- Ask the office what it currently asks for, and when. Including whether the cover needs to be in force at the point you submit, or from some later date. That is their rule and their answer, and it is the hinge the rest of the sequence hangs on.
- Read what a policy has to do before you shop, so you are comparing against the standard rather than against price — what a private policy has to cover.
- Start the application to the insurer early, even if you want a later start date. These are two different dates. The underwriting can be running while the cover has not yet begun, which is the arrangement that buys you time without buying you premium.
- Hold the start date against your own calendar — when you expect to submit, when you expect to travel, when you expect to arrive.
- Leave slack. Not because anything is likely to go wrong, but because the cost of slack is small and the cost of none is large.
If your situation is likely to change on arrival — registering, starting work, a Social Security position that shifts — the far end matters too. What approval does and does not change covers that, and renewal covers the calendar after it.
Four ways timing goes wrong
- Treating the insurer's decision as instant. It is an application, assessed by somebody, about you. Build that in.
- Leaving the family until the main applicant is sorted. Every person has their own answer and their own questions to get through. A household started late finishes late.
- Planning against a figure from a forum. It was true for one person at one post on one date, and you are none of those.
- Letting cover start before anybody has confirmed it is the right cover. Starting early is not the same as starting right, and an early start date on the wrong policy is the worst of both.
Working to a date?
Tell us when you expect to submit and when you expect to arrive, and we will work backwards with you. If it turns out you have more time than you thought, we will say so rather than hurry you.
Spain +34 868 290 730 · UK 0203 925 8884 · US +1 646 222 5288 · WhatsApp +34 632 935 154
Common questions
How long does the DNV application take?
We do not publish one. Processing times are the office's to state, they differ by post and by period, and a figure without a date and a source is somebody's anecdote. Ask the office you are applying through, recently.
When should I start arranging insurance?
Work backwards from the date you need the evidence rather than forwards from today, and start the insurer's application earlier than you want the cover to begin — those are two different dates, and the gap between them is where the time you need actually lives.
Does arranging cover take long?
Usually yes, and it is the step people underestimate. There are health questions, there may be follow-up, and the decision is the insurer's on their schedule. If you have anything to declare, allow properly for it.
Does my policy need to have started before I apply?
Ask the office handling your file — whether cover must be in force when you submit, or from a later date, is their rule rather than a general one. We will not state it for you, because getting that wrong is expensive in the one direction that cannot be undone.
What if my application takes longer than I expected?
Then you are paying for cover you are not using, which is a cost rather than a problem. The reverse — being late — is the one that holds everything else up. Given a choice between the two errors, the expensive one is the safer one.