Health Insurance Value Check

In the statutory health system the base rate is the same for everyone: 14.6 percent, split equally between employer and employee. The difference lies in the supplementary rate, which each insurer sets itself. One percentage point more or less sounds harmless but adds up to four- or five-figure amounts over a working life. The value check works this out for your income, capped by the contribution ceiling.

But the cheapest contribution is not automatically the best deal. Insurers differ in their extras: bonus programmes, professional dental cleaning, osteopathy, travel vaccinations, sports subsidies, optional tariffs and a working online office. The value check rates these extras and offsets them against the contribution into a value score, so you see price and benefit together rather than just one number.

The score splits into four dimensions: cost, coverage, flexibility and family value. Someone who needs a lot of health services weights differently than someone who almost never sees a doctor. So you can state your health needs and the score shifts accordingly. The result is not an advertisement for a particular insurer but a contextualisation for your situation.

A chapter of its own is the choice between statutory and private. Private insurance tempts with better benefits and, when young, often lower premiums. The catch comes later: premiums rise with age, there is no free family coverage, and the way back to the statutory system is blocked. The check contrasts the premium development and makes the long-term consequences visible that glossy brochures like to leave out.

Family coverage is one of the biggest quiet advantages of the statutory system. Spouses without their own income and children are covered free of charge. For a family this can completely reverse the value of a statutory insurer against a private policy. The value check factors this family value explicitly into the comparison.

Finally there is switching. Since the reform there is a binding period of twelve months, after which you can switch with two months' notice. If your insurer raises the supplementary rate, a special right of cancellation kicks in. The check shows the savings of a switch and the legal basis for it - including Sections 5 to 10, 11 to 68, 175 and 220 to 241 SGB V. This is not insurance advice but the honest overview you need to decide for yourself.