Health insurance advice by e-mail often bad

Health insurance: advice by e-mail often only satisfactory

05/14/2014

As a sample of Stiftung Warentest shows at 20 public health insurances, insured persons often have to wait a long time for an - often unsatisfactory - response to requests for advice via e-mail. The online information offered by the health insurances was, however, rated very positive.

Health insurance companies do not react to e-mails so quickly
If you want to know something about your statutory health insurance, you better not just write an e-mail. Although this would be convenient, a test now shows that the coffers on digital mail often do not respond as quickly as it would be desirable. As a sample of the Stiftung Warentest 20 Kassen revealed, only 64 percent of requests from test customers were answered within 24 hours, it says in the magazine „Finanztest“ (Issue 6/2014). In addition, it was found that in just under 40 percent of cases, an employee personally called back or was reachable by phone on the agreed date. More than 80% of all health insurances are insured in the tested health insurances.

Positive reviews for the online information service
The testers also write that in twelve cases there was no response from the health insurance within seven days; so the question was unanswered. In the category „Service via e-mail“ A total of 16 of the 20 health insurances tested were graded satisfactory and two only with the grade. Only the service of BKK Mobil Oil received the rating well. The online information offered by the health insurance companies was rated as very positive. So 18 providers performed well to very well. A shortcoming, however, is that only around 20 percent of consultants draw attention to this offer. The rating of the telephone consultation was better: By the second attempt at the latest came in 92 percent of cases to a discussion with a consultant.

Many customers do not learn about special offers
The results of personal consultations at the offices were more mixed. Five of the providers received a good grade, eleven achieved a satisfactory grade and two were sufficient. Two of the tested cash registers do not offer personal advice. The testers complained in this category above all that the employees of the health insurance companies repeatedly answered medical questions themselves, instead of referring to the specialized medical hotlines of the funds. Even though many health insurances offer their customers a wide range of special offers, such as cures, vaccinations, check-ups or subsidies for various health courses from aquafitness to yoga, insureds often do not know about it. Stiftung Warentest complains that the coffers often do little to change that. Only in every fifth interview did the employees come up with the idea of ​​referring to a suitable offer from their health insurance fund.

Six funds in the overall result with a good rating
The winner of the information offer was the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK). She was rated 2.4. BKK Mobil Oil was in second place with an average of 2.5. In terms of service cut all other funds with satisfactory or worse. In the overall result, the TK also scored the best with 2.1, followed by the AOK Lower Saxony, the commercial health insurance KKH and the miners with a grade of 2.4 each. The editorial team awarded six times overall in the overall result. Customers of the respective health insurance fund had requested information on flu vaccines, diabetes, cost assumptions and precautionary offers via e-mail, telephone and in person in the offices during the period from October 2013 to January 2014 for the random sample. (Sb)