Health Insurance Providers: How Much of Your Premiums Goes to Cover Running Expenses

1.73 billion francs: That is how much was spent on administration for mandatory health insurance in 2025 across all insurance providers. In other words, each of Switzerland’s residents paid 191 francs, on average, towards the administrative costs. These are the running expenses involved in providing the insurance, and include salaries, rents, IT costs, advertising, and sales commissions. They do not include the insurance benefits paid out towards medical expenses.

But which factors make up the total cost of administration? And how much do individual mandatory health insurance providers spend on administration? To answer those questions, moneyland.ch analyzed the official data published by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). The analysis reveals major differences between insurance providers.

These are the most cost-efficient health insurance providers

How much of your premiums goes towards the insurance company’s running expenses depends on which health insurance provider you use. Dividing up administrative costs by the number of people insured by a provider reveals a lot about cost-efficiency. “There are huge differences between health insurance providers in this regard. It is interesting to see that this year too, small health insurance providers are the most efficient,” observes Felix Oeschger. 

The most efficient health insurance providers are Sodalis (103 francs per customer and year), Sumiswalder Krankenkasse (110 francs), and the Krankenkasse Luzerner Hinterland (119 francs). Of the large health insurance companies with 100,000 mandatory health insurance customers or more, the most cost-efficient companies are Agrisano (154 francs), CSS (161 francs), and Helsana (162 francs), while Atupri has the highest administrative costs at 259 francs per customer.

Salaries make up the lion’s share

The bulk of running expenses goes towards paying employees. Around 1.26 billion francs of the administrative costs for 2025 was paid out in salaries. That translates into 73 percent of the total administrative costs. Other expenses are less prominent. Advertising makes up 74 million francs of total running expenses, while sales commissions and asset depreciation each contributed 33 million francs towards total running expenses.

The 1.73 billion francs are certainly a substantial expense. But it is important to note that those administrative costs are small compared to the total amount paid in premiums for mandatory health insurance. On average, running expenses make up just 4.2 percent of risk-adjusted premiums.

“The constant increase in the cost of mandatory health insurance that we have seen for many years now is primarily linked to healthcare spending,” explains moneyland.ch analyst Felix Oeschger.