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Minister Bruins: Supplementary health insurance not at risk

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Published

2 years ago

May 5, 2022

CLare Dominic

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Supplementary health insurance not at risk,

The sustainability of supplementary health insurance is not under pressure, as De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) stated last month, writes Minister for Medical Care and Sport Bruno Bruins in a letter to Parliament on Tuesday.

According to DNB, Dutch people only take out an additional care policy if they expect that they will actually make use of the extra care. As a result, certain supplementary insurance policies can become too expensive for insurers, who then reduce their coverage.

In 2012, 88 percent of people opted for supplementary health insurance, compared to 84.1 percent in 2017.

Bruins has requested figures about the sector from Zorgweb and Vektis. “There is, certainly for the shorter term, no reason to question the sustainability of supplementary health insurance or the insurability of supplementary care,” he writes.

Waiting time and medical selection still limited use (Minister Bruins: Supplementary health insurance not at risk)

According to Bruins, the analysis shows that although insuring extensive supplementary care is becoming more expensive, the range is still varied. Insurers also do not use instruments such as waiting time and medical selection more often with the supplementary policy.

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However, the number of so-called narrow policies has increased sharply in the past eleven years. These are insurance policies that only cover a limited number of areas, or even just one. The range of broad policies, which offer comprehensive coverage, has remained about the same over that period.

Also, fewer and fewer policies offer an extensive to unlimited reimbursement for physiotherapy, dentistry and orthodontics and there are more and more policies with a limited reimbursement for this care.

Premium goes up, coverage goes down

The average reimbursed healthcare costs per insured person have risen by approximately 68 euros in recent years. The increase is mainly due to dental and paramedical care, such as speech therapy and physiotherapy.

The premium for supplementary insurance has also increased in the past eleven years. At the same time, the coverage has decreased slightly, which means that the price-quality ratio has decreased slightly, writes Bruins.

Moreover, these higher premiums did not result in higher profit margins for insurers, a development attributable to a ‘combination of increased prices of care and an increase in the volume of care declared’.