Health insurance companies Atupri and Visana merge: What people with basic and supplementary insurance need to know

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The statutory health insurance market in Switzerland is highly competitive. In order to better position themselves there, insurance companies Visana and Atupri have recently announced that they will merge to form the new insurance company “Atusana” from 2024.

The new company will become a major player in the Swiss insurance market, with nearly one million policyholders. Angelo Eggli (55), former president of greater Visana, will lead the new company.

But from the customer’s point of view, the question arises of what will happen when the two insurance companies merge. Blick answers key questions using the example of Visana and Atupri merging.

The existing contracts of the customers of both insurance companies will continue under the same conditions and will not change in content. Contacts, access channels and contract content remain the same. Towards the end of the year, contracts for Atupri customers will have to be legally transferred – in this case to Atupri Gesundheitsversicherung AG. When the time comes, customers will be informed again. Visana customers stay in Visana.

NO. The merger between Atupri and Visana will take place on January 1, 2024. Customers may, if they wish, cancel their basic insurance from the end of December of the year, subject to the usual one month notice period. Important: Cancellation must reach the previous health insurance within working hours by 30 November 2023 at the latest.

The selected supplementary insurance remains the same in terms of contract and content, just like the basic insurance.

Pseudo-splitting is possible. “Of course” you can keep basic insurance with one and supplementary insurance with the other, both health insurance companies will insure you at Blick’s request.

According to Santésuisse spokesperson Christophe Kaempf – both Visana and Atupri are members of this industry association of Swiss health insurers – there are no generally applicable “merger directives”. Merger is different from case to case. In principle, however, insured persons should be able to assume that previous insurance benefits will also be covered under the new umbrella. In other words, mergers should not be used to eliminate “undesirable” policyholders.

The merger law regulates the legal principles for the merger of joint stock companies, limited partnership and limited partnership companies, cooperatives, associations, foundations and private companies.

With the merger of Visana and Atupri, the process of concentration in the Swiss health insurance environment continues. A little over a year ago, Helsana Group dissolved health insurance company Progrès, which was merged with core insurance company Sansan five years ago. Progrès takes over the Helsana basic insurance.

Everyone has to decide for himself. From a purely medical point of view, additional insurance is not required. However, if a person wants to stay in a single room or choose a free doctor at the hospital, they need additional insurance.

In supplementary insurance, the insurance company can reject the application by checking the health status of the applicant. By the age of 50, many people already have one or two ailments and therefore may be rejected. This applies above all to medical services in the hospital sector.

Source :Blick