EEA Comprehensive insurance while not working-NOT A STUDENT!

Hello everyone,

apologies in advance if this has already been answered, but I searched and searched and couldn't find an answer to my query. All queries re comprehensive insurance are student related.

I have been living in UK since 2004 and have now decided to apply for British Citizenship.
I have been working for the last 14 years (always full time employment) except period in 2011 when I stopped working for 9 months.
This decision was made due to the fact that I wanted a career change and I wasn't sure what to do.

Anyway, I have been able to live very comfortably while not working due to a big redundancy payment I have received when I left work in August 2011.
During this period, I have not been receiving any benefits at all here in UK, nor anywhere else in EEA.
I have started my new employment in June 2012 (still working for the same company).

Now, I need to prove that I have worked here for 5 years (+1 year) and paid my taxes, etc...
I called HO for an advice, but they were very unhelpful.
In their documents it states that I need to be able to prove that I was self sufficient (which I was) and that I have comprehensive insurance to cover the period while not working.

My questions are
1) will EHIC be enough?
2) would my life insurance from home (Slovakia) be sufficient enough? Insurance is for the period of 15 years and would cover the time while I wasn't working. (When I asked HO about this, they were not able to give me an answer).

Hope someone can shed a light on this.

Thank you.

The 5 years (for PR under the EEA regulation ) can be any 5 continuous years. Not the last ones. So assuming you did register with WRS (or was self employed), you can use 2004-2009 or 2006-2011. You then just need to prove you didn't leave the UK for more than 2 years since those 5 years.

If you use your student years, the EHIC needs to be a non UK one (or private health insurance).

For the naturalisation requirements, you must use the last 5 years but you can still use previous years for the PR.

Hi Jambo,

thank you for your reply, much appreciated.

I'm still somehow confused by all of this.
Do I need to have Permanent Residence first in order to apply for British Naturalisation?

When I called HO couple of times, I have been given different and conflicting answers, so basically I'm going in circles here.

Firstly, if I can prove that I was self sufficient for the period of time I was not working, that should be enough. Clearly that's what it states in their forms.
I was not studying here in UK, always in full time employment except the period of few months when I didn't work, didn't leave UK for more than 2 weeks holiday.
So considering I wasn't a student here, I don't really need EHIC to be from non UK country, do I?

Secondly, my private life and health insurance is in Slovakia (had that insurance from 2004) and it will end in 2019. Can I use this as a prove of my insurance while not working? Do I need to get this translated by officials? Or is the original (obviously in Slovak language) sufficient enough?

I'm sorry if those questions are daft, I'm trying to get everything in correct order so there are no hold ups once I send all documents in (and can hopefully get my naturalisation done soon!).

Thank you.

You need to hold Permanent Residence status before applying for BC. You don't need to apply for it as this status is obtained automatically after 5 years exercising treaty rights.

Self sufficient requires CSI but why to complicate things. Use 5 years of employment (2004-2009) with WRS.

Will your health insurance from home cover most of medical conditions in the UK? I'd yes, you can use it (but as I said, why complicate things?).

Hi Jambo,

thank you for finding a time to reply to me again.

I understand that I don't need to apply for Permanent Residence status as I would be exercising treaty rights (and automatically be entitled to it).

But when you say that I shouldn't complicate things and use 5 years (2004-2009 + my WRS) - it isn't possible to do that because I have to use last 5 years for naturalisation (which would be 2009-2014).
Unless I'm missing something here, I really don't know what/ how to use which documents.
I'm not worried about PR, I would love to get on with naturalisation and then British passport.

Thanks again Jumbo.

You need to use the last 5 years for naturalisation but this doesn't mean you need to show your PR based on the same years. As you don't have a document confirming your PR status, your naturalisation application is examined in a two step process. First, examine your PR status. Second, examine your naturalisation application. The two steps are linked but can you can use different years. Just provide the documents and you can add on page 17, that you have provided documents to prove you obtained PR in 2009.