Private health insurance – does it make sense for everyone??

The health insurance is probably one of the most important topics at all. Medical treatments can be expensive. Operations, examinations and various treatments are usually covered by health insurance in Germany. Although insurance is compulsory in this country, more and more people are without health insurance. There are many reasons for this. As an employee, one is usually covered by statutory health insurance. Under certain circumstances, however, private insurance is available. But is the private health insurance really useful for everyone?

Who may join the private health insurance?

Basically every German can insure himself privately. However, there are certain conditions. If someone is a civil servant, candidate for civil service, self-employed, freelancer or student, he or she can voluntarily join the private health insurance with a few prerequisites. A civil servant can only take out private health insurance if he or she earns a certain income. This limit is called the annual earnings threshold, and it will be set at 64 in 2021.350 Euro per year lie. A prerequisite, which is completely independent of the professional group, is the health examination. This is subjected to each prospective customer. Various data on the state of health will be requested. If someone has not been completely healthy in the past, has had certain operations or treatments, or is not in good health at the present time, the private health insurance company may refuse to cover him, regardless of his profession or income. With private health insurances there is, in contrast to legal health insurances, no admission obligation. In the case of minor health restrictions, the private health insurance can also exclude certain treatments or increase the premium.

The advantages of private health insurance

The benefits that come with private health insurance are primarily in the benefits. For example, as a privately insured person you have a free choice of doctor and also the free choice of which hospital you would like to go to in case of emergency. As a person with statutory health insurance, you usually have to go to the nearest doctor or hospital. As a member of a private health insurance, you are also entitled to a single room in the hospital and treatment by a chief physician. In addition, the allocation of appointments with doctors to private patients is faster. Even if some legal health insurance companies pay in the meantime Homoopathische treatments at least partly, are also here the achievements of the private health insurance companies more comprehensively. The premiums for private health insurance are generally higher than for statutory health insurance. The exception is civil servants, who only pay low rates due to a subsidy from their employers for health measures.

For whom is private health insurance worthwhile?

Basically, it should be noted that private health insurance always offers advantages. After all, health is the most important asset and should therefore also be adequately covered. If we now start from purely financial aspects, private health insurance is not worthwhile for everyone.
Employees are not allowed to switch to private health insurance until they reach a certain income level. This income must be earned over the period of one year for the change to take place. If this income limit is exceeded in the long term, it is certainly worth switching to private health insurance in any case.
Even as a civil servant, it is usually worthwhile to take out private health insurance. Civil servants are entitled to subsidies from their employers for all health matters. Family members of civil servants also benefit. Therefore, private health insurances offer special tariffs for civil servants, which are usually even cheaper than the statutory health insurances.
In principle, a student can take out private health insurance, but this is only worthwhile if one of the parents is a civil servant. Then the student also receives an allowance from the employer of the civil servant parent and therefore only has to pay a small contribution in private health insurance.
The situation is somewhat more complicated for self-employed physicians. The clear advantage over statutory health insurance is that contributions to private health insurance are independent of income. They are measured by factors such as age and health status of the person to be insured. So if a self-employed person has a high income, is young and healthy, it can even happen that he pays less in the private health insurance than in the statutory health insurance, but has much better benefits. But if the self-employed person has children, the situation is different, because he has to insure each family member separately. The statutory health insurers, on the other hand, offer family insurance policies. In addition, the cost of private health insurance increases with age and from 55 years it is no longer possible to switch back to public health insurance.
Whether it makes sense to take out private insurance therefore depends very much on income, occupation, age and, not least, state of health, and should always be examined on an individual basis.

Specialist books in acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, qigong, naturopathy, homeopathy and physiotherapy. Represented annually at many, important congresses such as the TCM congress in Rothenburg, the ASA congress and the Tao congress in Austria. For years I have been the publishing director of a publishing house for TCM, acupuncture and homeopathy.