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The most obvious option would be to inquire with your own private health insurance to what extent it is possible to switch to a cheaper tariff or whether there is the possibility of making other adjustments to the tariff. Anyone considering this should pay attention to the extent to which the benefits of the new tariff differ in relation to the existing insurance coverage. Services that are reduced by changing tariffs are usually lost for good. Often a tariff change also entails a new health examination.
Another possibility is to think about whether it makes sense to switch from a so-called “closed” to a currently offered tariff. To understand: some private health insurance companies “closed” old insurance tariffs in the past and included young insured persons in new tariffs. However, each insured person can, with reference to Section 204 of the Insurance Contract Act (VVG), request that he or she step out of these closed tariffs and be included in a currently offered tariff with the same benefits.
Check the tariff deductible
Contributions can also be saved if an insured person increases the deductible in their tariff. This means that the insured person pays a certain amount of the annual treatment costs himself. The PKV only pays the costs if this amount is exceeded.
If you increase the deductible accordingly, you will achieve lower monthly premiums in the longer term. However, one should not forget that all services that do not belong to the PKV service catalog must then be taken over completely and alone.
Slimmed down services in the standard tariff
Another possibility to stay with the current private health insurance but to save contributions is to switch to the so-called standard tariff. This is possible for every insured person if he was privately insured before 01.01.2009. But one should also consider: The standard tariff is a tariff with “light” services that every private health insurance company must offer by law.
This means that, with a few exceptions, the insured only receives the services that the statutory health insurance companies (GKV) offer their insured. “You should be aware of the fact that only very small medical fee factors are reimbursable in the standard tariff,” said the Hamburg Consumer Center.
Switching to a different private health insurance
If you come to the conclusion that the current private health insurance is no longer for you, you can look for an alternative via the well-known comparison portals. But be careful, such a change can also have significant disadvantages apart from apparently better monthly contributions. Among other things, the provisions set up for old age could be lost in whole or in part.
The retirement provisions are understood as the saved reserves for each insured person in a private health insurance scheme. These are formed from the insurance contributions and should keep the contributions stable in old age. Such provisions can usually be transferred in full if a tariff change occurs within a private health insurance company.
The move to statutory health insurance
A very radical step would be to leave the private health insurance scheme to become a member of statutory health insurance (GKV). But not everyone can change so easily. Two conditions must be met in any case:
The insured person is not yet 55 years old and the annual salary must not exceed the applicable limit, which is currently 62,550 euros gross annually. There is a small exception for employees who were already insured in a private health insurance scheme on December 31, 2002. The limit of 56,250 euros per year applies here.
Advice from experts makes more than sense
According to a study, however, switching from private to statutory health insurance is unlikely to be worthwhile, as the contributions in private health insurance do not increase more in the long term than in statutory health insurance. This is the result of an updated study by the Iges Research Institute.
If one only looks at the average development over the past ten years, the premiums in the private health insurance have even increased significantly less than in the statutory health insurance: While the premium income per insured person in the statutory health insurance increased by an average of 3.5 percent per person in the period from 2008 to 2018 Year, it was only 2.3 percent in private health insurance, according to the study.
Despite all the comparisons, it is still very difficult for the insured to have an overview of benefits, contributions and tariffs. If you are thinking about changes, you should definitely consult an expert to check your personal situation. This also includes the Federation of Insureds with its advice centers and a so-called needs check for consumers.
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