At the end of September, Health Minister Alain Berset (50) announced his premium hammer: In 2023, the cost of compulsory health insurance will increase by an average of 6.6 percent!
The shock is not only great for the insured, it also affects the insurers. Because big jumps in premiums cause many health insurances to change. The deadline runs until the end of November – and insurers are fiercely courting premium payers because no one wants to leave the market as a loser.
“The struggle for attention has been bigger than ever in the past few weeks,” says Felix Schneuwly, a longtime health insurance expert at online comparison service Compparis. Schneuwly believes insurers are spending significantly more premium millions on advertising than in previous years: “During the permanent auction process on Google, Comparis had to pay more than ever before to be ranked high for certain search terms. As ‘health insurance’. .»
In October and November, Google was paid up to CHF 100 for each person who clicked on a top-ranked ad and then requested an offer on the paying company’s website. “Since not every offer leads to a contract, it can be assumed that several hundred francs were paid to persuade individual policyholders to change,” says Schneuwly.
Experts are critical
The expert finds this development shocking – especially against the backdrop of which health insurers have officially committed to lowering customer acquisition costs: a new industry agreement is in effect since 2021, under which insurance companies are committed to responding to the “phone call”. from “cold calling”. In addition, brokerage house commissions were also brought to the upper limit. A health insurance company can now pay a maximum of 70 francs for each new customer referred for basic insurance. Schneuwly: “Limiting commissions for referrals certainly makes sense. But if the premium money goes to Google and Co., everything gets even more expensive for the insured.”
Schneuwly’s critique should be treated with caution. Comparis is a party and suffers twice from current developments: First, the comparison service has to pay more due to increased competition in order to stand out in search engines. Second, the company isn’t very interested in low agent commissions because that’s how it makes its money.
The impression that health insurance companies are really making with the big trowel this year is by no means absent: Anyone who Googles “the cheapest health insurance company” will be overwhelmed with ads. And in recent weeks, a health insurance poster has been hanging on every street corner. Zurich’s main train station is still at Helsana, ÖKK and Co. It was in Assura’s hand. On the other hand, even a tram in the blue-white city of Limmat was painted red to stop the bloodshed feared by the insured.
Health insurance companies on the decline
Health insurance associations are trying to put the observations into perspective and see the industry agreement put into effect in 2021 as a complete success. “From 2020 to 2021, there was only a small increase in advertising spending for basic insurance, from 60 to 62 million francs,” said a Santésuisse spokesperson. Agent commissions, on the other hand, fell much more sharply.
Rival association Curafutura denies it was an unusually large advertising attack. A spokesperson also emphasizes that advertising costs are responsible for only 0.2 percent of total costs in basic insurance in 2021.
0.2 percent sounds like less – 62 million francs behind it, like a lot more. Even this figure is only part of the truth. After all, 62 million francs are just about advertising spending on basic insurance. However, most health insurance companies, which also offer supplemental insurance and many other products, advertise the entire brand. “How much of that is attributed to the core insurance area varies depending on the fund,” says the head of a major primary insurer behind closed doors.
The figures from the market research institute Media Focus are therefore more revealing. These show that health insurance companies are actually campaigning heavily for premium payers this fall: gross advertising pressure – that is, the equivalent value for individual ad placement according to official media tariffs – amounted to CHF 14.2 million for health insurance. companies only in September and October. While it was 12.6 million francs in the same period in 2021, it was only 7.4 million francs in 2020 when Corona took shape.
These are expenses that the insured ultimately have to pay with their premiums.