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2021 will be the year of the health insurance choice.
For two reasons:
First
, many health insurances will be more expensive on January 1st - but not all.
The financial motive to change health insurance providers is growing stronger.
All the more against the background of strained household budgets due to Corona short-time work or a lack of orders.
To the author
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Financial tip
Hermann-Josef Tenhagen
(born 1963) is editor-in-chief of »Finanztip«.
The money advisor is part of the non-profit Finanztip Foundation.
»Finanztip« is refinanced via so-called affiliate links.
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Tenhagen was previously editor-in-chief of the “Finanztest” magazine for 15 years.
After studying politics and economics, he began his journalistic career at the »daily newspaper«.
Today he is an honorary member of the supervisory board of the cooperative.
Tenhagen writes weekly on SPIEGEL.de about how to use your own money properly.
Second
, the legislature has made it much easier to change health insurers.
In the future, it will work like when you switch electricity providers.
From 2021 you simply choose a new insurance company and tell the health insurance company: I want to see you.
The new cash register then takes care of terminating the old one.
All you have to do is inform the employer where you will be insured in the future.
The new health insurance company sends the formal certificate to the employer electronically.
If you initiate the switch at the beginning of January, you can be in the new till by April 1st.
It is only faster if you change employers, then you can change funds immediately - without any waiting time.
Even if something goes wrong when switching, nothing bad can happen.
As with electricity.
Because up to now, the old cash register has to take care of it.
You cannot be uninsured.
However, if the change worked per se, but you are not satisfied with the new fund, you only have to wait twelve months before you can move on.
It's been 18 months so far.
Should your fund increase the premium at some point, you still have a special right of termination anyway.
Corona and the contribution rate
Why have the registers become more expensive?
On the one hand, the corona crisis naturally also causes additional costs for health insurers.
Even if one assumes that some expensive, but not vital, operations have been postponed in 2020, then they will take place in 2021 and will then cost the fund patients the money.
Worse still: some hospital visits that are not taken out of concern about Corona will have expensive long-term consequences.
If the minor heart attack and the minor stroke are not treated properly, there is a risk of health consequences that will later cost a lot of money.
In the spring, almost 30 percent fewer heart attacks were treated in the clinics at times.
But they were there anyway.
Long-term health effects can be tedious and cost a lot of money.
Even more important, however, is that millions of paying members of the health insurance funds were on short-time work in 2020, many still are.
In some cases, you pay a much lower contribution to the health insurance fund.
Tens of thousands of members have - at least temporarily - become unemployed.
They also pay less.
In addition, the AOKs alone have more than six million family members who are insured with the health insurance companies but do not pay any contributions.
With the substitute funds like the Techniker or the Barmer there are nearly six million.
In fact, just a few big ships among the health insurance companies have increased their contributions on January 1st.
The Techniker wants 0.5 percentage points more from its almost eight million members, the Barmer wants more than seven million members 0.4 percentage points more.
AOK Plus and AOK Nordost are also growing strongly and want 0.6 percentage points more.
This is how much premium increases cost
A high earner with a gross income of 5,000 euros a month, for example, now pays the Techniker 764 euros instead of the previous 717 euros a month.
On the pay slip she sees 23 euros less month after month, the rest is paid by the employer.
In addition to the contribution rate, the contribution assessment ceiling has also increased;
the employee now has to pay the higher rate for 4837.50 euros of their salary, and not just as in 2020 for 4687.50 euros per month.
But those who earn 1,500 euros a month as part-time workers also have to pay more.
Instead of 229.50 euros, 237 euros are due.
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And the technician is by far not the most expensive cash register.
The BKK Herkules from Kassel, for example, requires a contribution rate of 16.3 percent in 2021.
The fund even reduced its contribution at the turn of the year by half a percentage point.
16.3 percent, that's 788 euros for employees with 5000 euros gross and 244.50 euros for part-time workers.
The HKK from Bremen offers its health insurance benefits nationwide, one of the smaller substitute health insurers with around 550,000 members.
The contribution rate there is only 14.9 percent in 2021 - or 720 euros or 223.50 euros for our two example cases.
Because employers pay half of the health insurance contributions, they have a fundamental interest in their employees switching to a cheap insurance fund.
That is why the legislature also allows you to change insurance fund immediately when you start with a new employer.
At this point, however, your interests as an insured person do not always have to be congruent with the interests of your employer.
Pay attention to the services
Because your own wallet can and should play an important role when choosing a cash register, but not the only one.
Anyone who has had good experiences with the care provided by their own health insurance company as a chronically ill person or who has come to appreciate the branch office of the health insurance company in their own district town shouldn't change.
Anyone who finds voluntary additional benefits from their health insurance fund to be important, for example for sports courses, should at least check whether the new health insurance fund also offers them before switching.
All health insurances in Germany have to offer the essential services, but the details of the service sometimes differ significantly.
One fund pays for the vaccination for the tropics, the other supports young families more or offers alternative medicine not only osteopathic treatment.
Here even the better cash registers still differ.
And in the last test, the IKK Classic and HEK performed particularly well here.
The next test comes in January.
That is why it is worthwhile for all fund members who value special services to check the extra services in addition to looking at the contribution rate.
We analyze them every year at Finanztip - including a look at the performance of the cash registers.
With some health insurances, you first have to file an objection if you are refused service or even to the social court in order to get rehab or the right wheelchair.
A study from 2017 is legendary, according to which health insurances often reject rehabilitation services at first, but pay in more than half of all cases after an objection by members.
2021 will be the box office election year.
And voting is easy.
How to proceed:
Rate your own cash register for yourself personally.
Compare the contribution rate and find an affordable fund.
Clarify personally important services and evaluate the offer as suitable or unsuitable.
Change (or not).
You can certainly do that too!
And if you were wrong, correcting your error will be a lot easier starting January 1st.
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