How We Help You: Our Comparison Methodology

Disclaimer: The information and tools provided on this website are intended as a general guide to navigating the Dutch insurance system. We provide an independent comparison platform, not personal financial, legal, or medical advice.

Navigating the Dutch insurance system as an international or local student can feel overwhelming. Bureaucracy, unfamiliar terms like eigen risico, and the risk of regulatory fines make choosing the right policy critical. We developed our independent comparison tools to help you compare health, travel, liability, household, and car insurance quickly and transparently.

Why We Created This Platform

Dutch insurance rules depend heavily on your personal and employment situation. For instance, international students who only study are generally exempt from taking out standard Dutch basic health insurance (basisverzekering). However, the moment you take a part-time job or a paid internship, taking out Dutch basic insurance becomes legally mandatory. Failing to comply can result in severe statutory retroactive fines from the CAK.

Our platform is designed to clarify these complex rules, explain how to apply for the healthcare allowance (zorgtoeslag), and help you find a policy that fits a tight student budget.

How Complete is Our Comparison?

We strive to include a large proportion of all insurers operating in the Netherlands, presenting their most recent premiums and policy conditions. For our primary health insurance comparison, we evaluate the following public Dutch providers:

• Anderzorg
• ASR
• CZdirect
• De christelijke zorgverzekeraar
• De Friesland
• FBTO
• Menzis
• Nationale Nederlanden
• OHRA
• ONVZ
• Salland
• United Consumers
• Univé
• VinkVink
• ZieZo
• Zilveren Kruis

What About Private International Policies?

Our primary comparison tool focuses exclusively on the mandatory Dutch public basic insurance (Zvw). If you are a study-only international student looking for private student insurance (such as Aon or InsureToStudy), we discuss these options in our separate guides, but they are not dynamically ranked in our main basic health insurance comparison tool.

How Do We Compare Policies?

We regularly aggregate and evaluate policies aimed at students and young professionals. Our comparison tool is structured to highlight policies with the most competitive basic premiums by default. From there, you can filter the results based on your preferred mandatory deductible (eigen risico) and your specific supplementary coverage needs (such as dental care or physiotherapy).

Common Student Scenario

How our tool helps: David is an international student who just started a part-time job at a local café. He knows he falls under the health insurance rules for working students and needs a Dutch policy immediately to avoid CAK fines. Instead of visiting 15 different Dutch websites and translating the terms, he uses our comparison tool to filter by the lowest premium, selects a standard policy, and follows our guide to apply for his monthly zorgtoeslag to offset the costs.

Independence, Chamber of Commerce, and AFM

Transparency is our priority. studentinsurance.nl is registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KvK) under number: 27329130. The company behind our platform (Helms Online B.V.) participates in the collective license in mediation of Awin BV, operating under AFM Number: 12042897.

How Do We Earn Our Money?

When you use our comparison tool and decide to switch to or purchase a policy from a provider, studentinsurance.nl may receive a one-off commission from that insurer. This reimbursement varies per provider.

Important: We never let these commissions influence the ranking or results in our comparison tool. By default, the cheapest premiums always appear at the top. Our primary goal is to offer extensive, high-quality, and easy-to-understand information to our target group of students and young people.