Insureds owe billions to the health insurance companies

Rising contribution arrears in the statutory health insurance

22/08/2012

More and more statutory health insurance are with their health insurance with the contribution payments in arrears. According to a report by the umbrella association of statutory health insurances in Berlin, voluntarily insured self-employed persons and destitute returnees from private insurance can often not pay their contributions. This results in contribution deficits of just under € 1.8 billion.

For the health insurance companies, the contribution deficits are a real nuisance, but to collect them on the fly is not an option. Because the defaulting insured are simply simply not able to pay the premiums. Here, the legislator seems to have a duty to find a regulation that allows those affected to remain in the GKV if they can make sustainable contributions. In any case, the massive increase in the backlog of contributions shows that there is a need for action.

Increase of the contribution arrears with the health insurance companies by 800 million euro
According to information from the GKV-Spitzenverband, in November premium arrears amounted to 1.77 billion euros, around 800 million more than in the previous year (1.03 billion euros in June 2011). Since the introduction of compulsory insurance in April 2007, there has been a continuous increase in the backlog of contributions, especially among the self-employed who are voluntarily covered by statutory health insurance and the largely destitute people who came into the statutory insurance as returnees from private health insurance (PKV). The causes of arrears of contributions include consumer bankruptcies, financial instability among self-employed self-employed and inability to pay for people with little or no income.

Contribution defaults in the statutory health insurance a growing problem
In the first quarter of 2012, the premium arrears, according to the GKV-Spitzenverband, amounted to 1.53 billion euros with premium income totaling 171.845 billion euros. As the press spokesman of the GKV-Spitzenverband, Florian Lanz, emphasized in a press release in April, the debts in the first quarter „only 0.89 percent of premium income“, What „a sensationally good value“ be. Since then, however, premium arrears have risen by a further 20 percent. At the largest German health insurance fund, the Barmer GEK alone, claims of 227 million euros, spread over 52,000 private debtors, are reported. In addition, employers also owed around € 300 million to their employees.

Interest on the contribution debts of defaulting insured persons
However, the increase in premium arrears is not necessarily attributable to an increasing number of defaulting policyholders, but is partly due to the interest on the contribution debts, explained Lanz. Legislators each month impose a default payment of five percent on voluntarily insured persons who have not paid their contributions for more than one month. If the number of contributors remains the same, there will automatically be an increase in the outstanding contributions.

Lower minimum contribution rate for low-earning voluntary health insurance
Compared to the „Tagesspiegel“ demanded the spokesman for health policy of the CDU parliamentary group, Jens Spahn, in view of the current figures on the contribution arrears, a discharge of the voluntarily legally insured self-employed with low income. The health insurance contributions should be lowered for them under the current minimum contribution rate of 293, so Spahn. This minimum contribution rate is based on a fictitious monthly income of € 1,969, which many self-employed persons do not achieve in reality. The monthly income used for the calculation was set clearly too high, so the view of the CDU health politician. As Spahn explained to the newspaper, it is „not in our interest to drive kiosk owners and other small business owners into payment issues.“ How the already existing contribution arrears are to be reduced, remains however at this point open. Many insured persons are unlikely to be able to repay due to the interest on their debts. For example, the quarterly figures for the second half of 2012 are expected to lead to further increases in premium defaults. A debt relief concept seems urgently needed here. (Fp)

Read about:
Insureds owe health insurance 1.5 billion
Switch to statutory health insurance for private persons easier
Private health insurance: Many do not pay
PKV: For non-payers only emergency care
Health insurance: Non-payers cause losses
Health insurance: What changes 2016351a2cc0b08c03> Image: Gerd Altmann