City BKK and GBK rescued from bankruptcy

City BKK and GBK rescued from bankruptcy

At the end of November, the company health insurance funds agreed on a rescue plan for the joint BKK Köln (GBK) and City BKK. The threatened insolvency of the two statutory health insurance due to the massive over-indebtedness, seems for the time being prevented.

According to the rescue plan of the company health insurance funds, the City BKK is to be rescued with a reorganization plan and the GBK through the merger with another company health insurance fund. Overall, the health insurance funds want to raise almost 60 million euros to help the two insurers threatened by bankruptcy. The reorganization plan for the City BKK provides for support of around 40 million euros, with the money being made available by the other company health insurance funds to prevent the closure of City BKK. A settlement of the City BKK would have cost the other company health insurance funds according to the calculations of the BKK Bundesverbandes about 135 million euros, so that the now envisaged remediation for the company health insurance still seem relatively inexpensive.

According to the bailout plan, the GBK is to merge with the statutory health insurance company mhplus, although the merger should only come about if the other company health insurance funds also contribute a restructuring aid. The debts to be taken over are estimated by mhplus at around 18 million euros. After the merger, the merged fund will have over 550,000 members insured. Since mhplus does not require any additional contributions from its insured persons, these will also be canceled for formerly GBK insured persons as of 01 January 2011. At the beginning of the year, all previous GBK customers will also receive a new chip card from mhplus. Both City BKK insured and GBK insured can continue to receive treatment normally and doctors and hospitals are fully reimbursed for treatment costs, health insurance companies said in connection with the current bailout plan.

The Verband der Betriebskrankenkassen also made it clear that even if the City BKK or the GBK went bankrupt the insured persons would not have been without insurance cover. If one of the statutory health insurance had gone bankrupt, the customers would only have to look for a new insurance. The larger the insolvent health insurance, the more difficult it is, however, to accommodate the insured in another legal insurance. In the wake of the current wave of mergers giant health insurance with millions insured, according to industry insiders such as Rolf Stuppardt of the Association of the guilds, no normal bankruptcy could be carried out because the insured could not be accommodated easily in another legal insurance. Thus, the state would be forced to intervene to ensure the insurance coverage of the members. However, this could be prevented for the time being by the City BKK and the GBK due to the planned rescue plan of the company health insurance funds. (fp, 14.12.2010)