EE3 and EE4 - CSI advice needed

[ptfnc]

Hi All,

I’m Malaysian and my husband is citizen of Czech Republic. We have lived continuously in UK for more than 7 years. I have been working in the past five years and my husband who is a EU national has been studying his Master degree and PhD, which he is about to finish in few months. Half year ago, we applied for EEA3 and EEA4. Few weeks later, we have received call from Home Office and were advised to withdraw our application based on the fact that my husband did not have comprehensive health insurance coverage/CSI.

We have browsed through posts here and based on the advice found; we have started to pay for the insurance (for both of us) and applied again.

However, few days ago we have received our application package back with letter of rejection stating that the insurance does not core the whole 5 years period and thus is insufficient.

Can anybody advice on how to proceed?
Is there any point to appeal?

Thanks for your response
Fern

[Jambo]

A few options:

- when you applied for RC 5 years ago, did your husband apply for EEA1 as a student? (he didn't have to but if he did that would exempt him from CSi).
- would your husband be able to produce a non UK EHIC or a letter from the Czech authorities confirming he was covered by the Czech Heath system while studying?
- did your husband work or only study? Workers don't need CSI.
- you can apply for another 5 years RC.

[anettes]

I'm afraid you can't prove you have CSI retrospectively which means that if your husband didn't have any kind of CSI during his studies so far, getting one now does not cover the previous years...

I don't know about your case as you're not EEA national, but I'm afraid your husband will have to wait for 5 years after he got his CSI, given that after he graduates he is in work/student with CSI/self sufficient with CSI/job seeker to cover 5 continuous years.

[EUsmileWEallsmile]

@OP, can you confirm what documentation you hold? Specifically, did you get a residence card when you first came to the UK? If so, how did you receive it? Was it on the basis of your husband's studies. If so, was it successful despite lack of CSI? If so, it may be open to you to challenge the decision.

Although the directive and the regulations specify that students require to have CSI, the UK did not enforce it until relatively recently. They have made an arbitrary decision to allow successful EEA1 applicants to continue on that basis. Those who didn't missed the boat.

[ptfnc]

Thank you for your posts

To answer your questions:
1) My husband did not apply for EEA1 (did not know that there is any point in it)
2) He also did not have Czech EHIC because he was working in UK shortly in 2007 before going back to school. Thus he initially canceled his Czech insurance (since it is illegal to be insured in more than one country) and later did not restart it (did not know it is needed). Also we did not know there is anything such as CSI.
3) I have applied for the Residence Card in January 2008. At the time my husband was alraedy a student. They issued the card after almost 11 months of prolonged communication. They had several times requested evidence of how my husband is exercising the treaty rights, has sufficient funds and is not burden to the public funds. As I have checked now, none of those letters mentioned anything about CSI at all.

EUsmileWEallsmile:
1) To answer your question: as explained above, I was issued the residence card without evidence of or even question about CSI
Can you please elaborate on how to possibly proceed with challenging the decision on these bases?
2) What do you mean by “They have made an arbitrary decision to allow successful EEA1 applicants to continue on that basis. Those who didn't missed the boat.”? To continue what?

I the initial post, I was referring to the older posts from last year (2012) where number of people whom same as me found out only at time of application for EEA3/EEA4, that CSI exists and that it is mandatory for the application. They reported that it was sufficient to start new CSI without having any past evidence of CSI, reapply and the applications were successful. Can please somebody comment on this?

Regards
Fern