Change of health insurance still possible

Special right of termination by contribution increase of the health insurance

01/23/2015

Since the beginning of the year, statutory health insurance funds have been allowed to levy an individual additional contribution in addition to the general contribution rate of 14.6 percent. Without such an additional contribution is hardly a checkout. They had to inform their insured person by 31 December 2014 at the latest. Some health insurance companies sent their information letters, however, only in January. Insured persons can still change their health insurance to April.

Saving money by changing the health insurance
Insured persons who want to change their health insurance have one month to cancel their old health insurance. As the 31st of January is a Saturday, it will be sufficient if the notice of termination is received by 2 February. Stiftung Waren has developed a health insurance calculator with which insured persons can determine how much money they would save by changing their cash register. Thus, an insured person with a gross salary of 2,000 euros would save 18 euros each month, if he would switch from a health insurance with a contribution rate of 15.5 percent to a checkout with 14.6 percent, report the consumer advocates on their website. Basically, the new cheaper tariff applies from April. Until then, the insured remain with their old health insurance.

If the health insurance company has not informed its insured persons about their change of contributions by the end of December 2014, the special right of termination will be extended accordingly. The Techniker Krankenkasse sent the information on 4 January, so that the letters arrived on 8 January with their insured. The victims now have until February 8 to cancel their time. Even if the insured was informed very late, for example at the end of February, by their health insurance company, their termination is valid as of 31 March.

Compare the range of services offered by the health insurance company before the termination
However, the special right of termination due to the additional contributions is only important for insured persons who are insured with their health insurance for less than 18 months. After an insurance period of one and a half years, a notice period of two months applies.

Before deciding on a change of health insurance, not only the financial aspects but also the performance should be examined more closely. Thus, different cash registers offer extras that others have not included in their service catalog. For example, this could include checkups that are of interest to families. Also, services from the alternative medical field such as homeopathy or bonus programs for healthy living does not take over any health insurance. Other differences include professional teeth cleaning and vaccinations for trips abroad.

Special rules for recipients of pensions and pensioners
Due to a system change, pensioners and recipients of pensions whose contributions are paid by the paying agent to the health insurance fund will postpone the first collection or the future change of the additional contribution by two months, such as „versicherungsbote.de“ informed. In order to bridge this gap, the legislator has created a special provision: For January and February, a flat-rate additional contribution of 0.9 percent should be applied, which is independent of the actual additional contribution of the health insurance companies. (Ag)