In this article
Related guide: Sanitas vs international health insurance in Spain
Sanitas Más Salud vs. DKV Integral, Point by Point
The DKV data comes from its general terms and conditions in the edition updated in January 2026 and from its official copay table. We include no prices from either company, because they depend on province, age and plan.
The ranges: what is being compared
Sanitas’s health range is organized in three tiers. The base plan is Más Salud, a medical-network policy with no copays; anyone who prefers a lower premium in exchange for paying something per visit has the Plus and Óptima versions, with their published copay schedule. For reimbursement, to choose a doctor outside the network, there are Premium 500.000 and Más 90.000, plus Top Quantum, which includes reimbursement in the family specialties. And at the entry level, Avanza, Accede and Único +60. When a client walks into the office, the first step is to place them in one of those tiers according to how they are going to use their insurance.
DKV Integral has five plans, Élite, Classic, Plus, Complet and Elección, which differ only in their copay amounts: Élite is the one with none and Complet the one that charges the most. Reimbursement is not part of Integral; it is a separate product, DKV Mundisalud. The underlying comparison, therefore, is Más Salud against DKV Integral Élite.
The medical network
Sanitas publishes more than 59,000 professionals and more than 4,100 own and partner centers, plus five own hospitals and 226 own dental clinics. It is by far the largest medical network of any we compare on this blog, and the only one in which part of the network belongs to the insurer itself.
DKV publishes more than 51,000 professionals and 1,000 centers, all in a partner network, and states that 93 of Spain’s 100 best hospitals are part of it. By number of professionals it is the second-largest network of those we compare, behind Sanitas.
Own hospitals
Sanitas is the only one of the major insurers with hospitals of its own: five in operation. Four are in Madrid and are university hospitals: La Zarzuela in Aravaca, La Moraleja in Sanchinarro, Virgen del Mar and Blua Valdebebas, its first digitally native hospital, accredited as a university hospital in April 2026. The fifth is CIMA, in Barcelona. La Zarzuela and La Moraleja rank in the top 10 of Spanish private healthcare, and La Zarzuela is fifteen minutes from our office. Having your own hospital means insurer and hospital are the same house: no money up front, no reimbursement claims, and your medical record in a single place.
DKV has no own hospitals. Its 21 Espacios de Salud DKV are outpatient and dental centers, and the 93 hospitals in its network are partner hospitals. For consultations and tests the difference is small; for a hospital stay, it is the difference between a hospital owned by your insurer and one it has an agreement with.
Reimbursement: choosing a doctor outside the network
If what you want is to choose a doctor outside the network, Sanitas covers it with two free-choice products: Premium 500.000 reimburses 90% of the bill up to €500,000 a year and Más 90.000 reimburses 70% up to €90,000. Both give access to a partner network in the United States, can be taken out up to age 64 and set no maximum age for staying insured. Top Quantum, in addition, includes reimbursement as standard in the family specialties. The base plan Más Salud, by contrast, works with Sanitas’s own and partner medical network, with no reimbursement.
DKV Integral has no general reimbursement: outside its network it covers only emergencies with express authorization and, abroad, serious illness at 80% up to €16,000 a year. To choose a doctor freely you have to take out DKV Mundisalud, with 80% or 90% reimbursement depending on the level. At both companies, free choice is a separate product.
Copays
Más Salud has no copays: you pay nothing per visit, whether for a consultation, a test or a video consultation. Anyone who prefers a lower premium has the copay range, whose full schedule is published. The most detailed case is Avanza: the first six services of the year are free, the seventh to the fifteenth cost €5 and from the sixteenth onward €10; tests and therapeutic procedures are €12, emergency visits €8, and podiatry and dental €3, with a cap of €350 per insured person per year, so the maximum outlay is known in advance.
In DKV Integral four of the five plans carry a published copay, and the amounts are of a different order: in Complet, €13.50 per general medicine consultation, €23 per specialist, €67 per hospital emergency visit, €110 per CT scan and €185 per MRI, with a cap of €600 per insured person per year. Anyone choosing DKV with a copay should do the math on their actual usage; anyone who wants no surprises has Élite, with no copay, or Más Salud.
Dental
Sanitas health insurance includes basic dental cover as standard, with check-ups and cleanings at its 226 own dental clinics, and for anyone who wants more, Dental Milenium or Dental Premium can be added as a supplement with no health questionnaire and no age limit for taking them out. It is the only insurer among those compared whose basic dental cover is provided in its own clinics.
DKV includes a dental schedule with a price per treatment, not free of charge: consultations, extractions and cleanings are included but carry a copay, and its official list of deductibles sets out 152 priced treatments, such as €85 for a single-canal root canal. Orthodontics, prostheses and implants are excluded.
Waiting periods
With Sanitas there is no waiting period for consultations or emergencies; there are 3 months for outpatient surgery in groups 0 to II, 6 for complex tests and psychology, 8 for childbirth and 10 for hospitalization and surgery in groups III to VIII. What matters for anyone switching from another company is that all of them, except childbirth, can be waived at enrollment by providing proof of the previous policy; it is an underwriting decision Sanitas makes when processing the application, and at the office we always request it and confirm it in writing before you cancel the other policy.
DKV applies 6 months for outpatient surgery in groups 0 to II, high-tech diagnostics, CT, MRI and psychotherapy; 8 months for hospitalization, surgery in groups III to VIII, prostheses and childbirth; and 12 months for transplants, with no waiting period for life-threatening emergencies or premature birth. For hospitalization, DKV is two months shorter for anyone taking out their first policy; coming from another company, Sanitas’s waiver evens the comparison.
Remote care and second opinion
With Sanitas, 24-hour video consultation is included in the policy through Blua, its digital services in the Mi Sanitas app, together with a second medical opinion. On Más Salud it carries no copay, because the product has no copays.
DKV offers 24-hour video consultation and medical chat and an international second medical opinion, but the video consultation carries the same copay as an in-person visit in the copay plans. It is a detail that changes how people use it: whoever pays for each video consultation uses it less.
Enrollment age
Sanitas enrolls from age 0 to 75 and, according to its product documentation, sets no maximum age for staying insured. The Único +60 plan, designed for older clients, has no upper age limit for enrollment from age 60, something rare in the market.
DKV Integral enrolls up to age 75, the same as Sanitas, and publishes no maximum age for staying insured. On this point the two companies are level.
Where and with whom you sign up
With Sanitas you can sign up at a physical office with an exclusive agent, like ours in Majadahonda: the same person before and after enrollment, service in eight languages, no surcharge for the advice and a reply in under 24 hours. The price is the official Sanitas price, the same as through any other channel.
DKV is sold through agencies, brokers and direct sales, with no exclusive office of the insurer.
Comparison prepared in September 2026 from the general terms and conditions of DKV Integral and DKV Mundisalud in the edition updated in January 2026, their product information documents and their official copay table, published on dkv.es, and from Sanitas product documentation. Exact coverage depends on the plan taken out: always check the current terms before deciding. Sanitas is a registered trademark of Sanitas, S.A. de Seguros; DKV is a registered trademark of DKV Seguros y Reaseguros, S.A.E.; all other trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Common questions
Direct answers, the same we give at the office.
Is DKV or Sanitas better for a residency application?
Neither brand wins automatically: both are authorised to operate in Spain and both issue policies that consulates and immigration offices accept, so what decides your application is the policy conditions and the certificate wording. It must show no copays, no waiting periods, cover across the whole Spanish territory and cover equivalent to the public system's. Where offices differ is turnaround and format: we guarantee the certificate within 24 hours, issued in English or Spanish depending on what your consulate asks for, and with the paid-premium receipt for the products where immigration requires the year paid up front. If you already hold a DKV or other quote, send us the conditions and we will check them against your consulate's published checklist at no charge — a rejected file costs you months, and it is almost always a preventable detail.
Is Sanitas or DKV cheaper?
We do not publish prices for either company, and that is deliberate: DKV's premium depends on the province, the age and the plan, and ours comes from the Madrid rate table, one of the provinces with the highest premiums, so putting one figure next to the other would not be fair to either. What we do instead is the useful part: bring us your DKV quote at our Majadahonda office and we will set it next to the Sanitas one for the same age, the same postcode and the cover you will actually use: own hospitals, dental included, medical network and co-payments. Those are two figures you can genuinely compare. And if you have already chosen Sanitas, bring an official quote from another Sanitas office or from the company itself and we will improve on it.
I am German and DKV is a familiar name to me. Does that count for anything?
It counts for how comfortable you feel, which is not nothing when you are insuring your health in a country whose system you do not know yet, and DKV does have a long presence among German-speaking residents in Spain. What it does not count for is the medical network you will actually use here, which is a separate question from brand familiarity: the practical test is which insurer has the specific centres and specialists near your Spanish address. On our side, German is no barrier: our team attends in eight languages (Spanish, English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese) and our site is available in German, so you can read everything and have the whole conversation with us in your language.
Does Sanitas include dental and DKV not?
It is not that DKV has no dental, it is that you pay for it treatment by treatment, which is the part people miss. Basic dental cover comes included with Sanitas Más Salud, backed by 226 Sanitas-owned dental clinics, and you can upgrade it with Dental Milenium or Dental Premium. With DKV you get a dental network with a price per treatment: consultations, extractions and cleanings are included but with a copay, its official schedule of excesses lists 152 priced treatments — €85 for a single-canal root canal, for example — and orthodontics, prostheses and implants are excluded altogether. So when you compare the two totals, price in what the dentist will actually charge you on each side, not just whether the word 'dental' appears in the policy — a mistake we see often when clients arrive with two quotes in hand.
Can I move from DKV to Sanitas without starting waiting periods again?
Normally yes, and it is one of the most useful things to know before switching. If you present a certificate from DKV showing the period you were insured, Sanitas can waive the waiting periods that would otherwise apply — 6 months for complex tests and 10 months for hospitalisation, 8 months for childbirth — so you are not left exposed during the change. The critical part is sequencing: the new policy must be in force before the old one lapses, with no gap, particularly if you are due a TIE or residency renewal where immigration checks continuous cover. We handle that overlap and issue the updated certificate; what we need from you is the DKV certificate and enough notice before your renewal date.
Which is better if I split my time between Spain and another country?
For that profile neither of these two is necessarily the answer, and it is worth saying rather than selling you one. Both Sanitas Más Salud and DKV Integral are designed for people living in Spain, with limited emergency cover abroad — Sanitas covers emergencies abroad for trips of up to 90 days. If you spend several months a year outside Spain, look at Sanitas Global Care, which works through the Bupa Global international network, or hold an international policy alongside a Spain-compliant one for your residency. We compare that combination with clients regularly and will tell you when the extra cost is not justified, because for most people who live here year-round it is not.
Why go through the Sanitas Majadahonda office instead of buying direct?
Because it costs you exactly the same and you end up with a named person following your policy. We are an exclusive Sanitas agent registered with the DGSFP, the Spanish insurance regulator, under key C0320B67816207, with a physical office at Calle Santiago Apostol 5 in Majadahonda, Madrid, 5.0 stars and more than 400 reviews on Google. The advice carries no surcharge: the premium is the one on the official Sanitas rate card, identical through every channel, and on top of the same price you get help with the paperwork, a review at every renewal and someone to go to if an authorisation or an invoice goes wrong. We only sell Sanitas, so we are not going to pretend Sanitas wins at everything — this very comparison shows you where it does not. The easiest way to reach us is WhatsApp: writing is simpler than calling when Spanish is not your language. We attend in eight languages (Spanish, English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese), and we reply in under 24 hours, guaranteed.