More than 500,000 pieces of data were analyzed for the moneyland.ch study of Swiss compulsory health insurance premiums for 2019 and 2020.
The results of the study: “Premiums for adult residents using the standard model of mandatory health insurance are rising at an above-average rate,” states moneyland.ch analyst Felix Oeschger. “Young adults, on the other hand, will benefit from the fact that average premiums are going down in 2020, as they did in 2019.”
Comparing ahead of the new year is still worth it
Although average premiums are barely rising in 2020, there are still good reasons to perform a health insurance comparison ahead of the new year:
- Some insurance providers are raising premiums at rates much higher than the average.
- Many residents have not compared health insurance premiums for several years, and their insurance policies may no longer be the most affordable for them.
- Changing insurance providers is not the only way to save on premiums. Many insurance providers offer several insurance and deductible models and optimizing these can also lower premiums.
Some premiums up by 29.5%. Others down by up to 45%.
Health insurance premiums for some policies are going up by as much as 29.5% in 2020. For example, Valais-based insurer Krankenkasse Simplon is raising premiums for policies with 2500 Swiss franc deductibles. Many other residents will see their premiums go down significantly. That is especially true for young adults. For example, insurance provider EGK is lowering premiums for young-adult policyholders with 2500-franc deductibles by almost 45% compared to 2019 in many cantons.
Young adults benefit from premium reductions
In Swiss compulsory health insurance, adults between the ages of 19 and 25 years old are classified as young adults. Young adults saw their premiums drastically increase steadily up until the 2019 insurance year, when a political decision relieved the strain on premium payers in this age group. “Premiums for young adults are going down again in 2020, although health insurance premium subsidies will be lower,” says moneyland.ch CEO Benjamin Manz.
On average, premiums for young adults are going down by 3.2% in 2020. That means that on average, young adults will save 9 francs per month on insurance premiums. Young adults still pay 273 francs per month in premiums, on average. In 2019, around 14.9% of premiums for adults in this age group had to be covered by government health insurance premium subsidies.
Cantons in which weighted average premium subsidies for young adults are particularly high include Bern (-7.3%), Basel-Stadt (-5%) and Schaffhausen (-4.9%).
Premiums for other adults are going up
While young adults will benefit from lower premiums, adults above the age of 26 will see their premiums go up yet again.
The average health insurance premium for the adult category will go up by 0.7% to 384 francs per month. “In 2020, adults aged 26 or older will pay over 100 francs more per month, on average, than young adults,” calculates moneyland.ch analyst Felix Oeschger.
Above-average premium increase for standard health insurance
Premium developments differ between health insurance models. Increases are highest for standard-model health insurance, with premiums climbing by 0.7% on average across all age groups. Premiums for the general practitioner model are going up by 0.6% on average. Premiums for the telmed model are increasing by just 0.1% on average, and those for the HMO model are not increasing at all (0%).
Differences between deductible models
Premiums for adult policies with 300-franc deductibles are going up by 0.7% on average, while those for policies with 2500-franc deductibles are going up by 0.9%.
Premiums for young adult policies with 300-franc deductibles are going down by 2.6%, and those for policies with 2500-franc deductibles are going down by 4.1%.
More on this topic:
Compare premiums for 2020 using the interactive Swiss health insurance comparison
