Health insurance Many do not pay any additional contributions

Many health insurance companies pay no additional contributions.

(14.09.2010) Many health insured do not pay due to ignorance of individual health insurance collected additional contributions. Because unlike the regular health insurance contributions, these are not automatically deducted from the salary, but must be transferred separately.

The health insurance companies complain that many health insured do not pay the collected additional contribution. According to a survey, every fifth member of the DAK, BKK health and BKK for health professionals did not pay the additional contribution. At the City BKK there should even be more than 30 percent defaulting additional contributions payer. According to the health expert Wolfgang Schuldzinski of the consumer center of North Rhine-Westphalia, many insured persons would not know at all that they would have to become active themselves. The persons concerned often assume that the additional contribution is automatically transferred by the employer.

At the DAK you try to contact the defaulting payer first by phone. „We want to talk intensively with the customers again and find out the reason why they do not pay“, said DAK spokesman Frank Meiners to the dpa. A reminder is only the last step for the fund to collect the additional contribution. With a reminder, additional fees and interest may be due. About 10 percent would currently not pay the additional contributions to the DAK.

Since the beginning of the year, individual health insurance companies levy so-called additional contributions. Most health insurances require eight euros per month, plus the regular insurance premiums, per contributory member. If a health insurance company announces such an additional contribution, then one can make use of its special right of termination, as Schuldzinski declares by the consumer advice center. Anyone who changes the health insurance in good time does not have to pay the first additional contribution. (Sb)