Health insurance companies should show balance sheets

Health insurance funds should publish balance sheets every three months

30/05/2011

22 other health insurance companies may be close to bankruptcy. This was reported by Wirtschaftswoche, referring to an internal report by the umbrella association of statutory health insurance GKV. Now, the black-yellow coalition wants to oblige health insurance companies in future to disclose their balance sheets. To this end, the Federal Ministry of Health is preparing a bill. As it was said, the governing coalition is already conducting internal talks on the subject. Above all, the intention of the proposed legislation is to restore the trust of the insured. By announcing the failure of the City BKK numerous insured had difficulties to find a new health insurance. Many have already been rejected on the phone. By disclosing the balance sheets, the policy should also be able to prepare better in the future.

Law is due this year
As the Federal Ministry of Health emphasized, the new law will be passed this year. Since the health insurances are institutions in the sense of the public right, they must disclose only few data. The Ministry is considering whether the future disclosure requirements of the funds will be aligned with the provisions for corporations. These must disclose their most important business figures on a quarterly basis. This could create a transparency that benefits the statutory insured, the CDU health expert Jens Spahn told the newspaper. Before a change of health insurance, interested parties could first research the financial circumstances of the fund and then consider joining.

22 more funds are facing the end
As the Wirtschaftswoche further reports, 22 other health insurance companies are suspected of being close to bankruptcy. A study of the GKV Verband had come to the conclusion that a total of 23 funds have threatening financial difficulties. The evaluation was carried out before the closure of City BKK. Shortly thereafter, the fund was asked by the cash supervision to close. (Sb)

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