Per Capita Insurance Premium

In insurance, the term per capita premium is used to define the premium applicable to each person covered by an insurance contract.

For example, in Switzerland, each resident is required to have their own mandatory health insurance policy, for which they pay an individual insurance premium. So, a five-person family would have to pay five separate per capita premiums.

The term is also often used to denote insurance premiums which do not vary based on the insured person’s income. That is the case with Swiss mandatory health insurance (when you do not account for health insurance premium subsidies). Swiss health insurance is often referenced as an example of a social insurance which uses a per capita premium model.

Sometimes, the term per capita premium is used synonymously with the term unified insurance premium. But that use is inaccurate: In Swiss health insurance, the per capita insurance premiums vary based on various factors relating to the insured person.

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