Understanding the 2025 Public Health Insurance Price Increase in Germany

Understanding the 2025 Public Health Insurance Price Increase in Germany

Introduction to Public Health Insurance

If you have public health insurance in Germany, then this blog is specifically good for you. Now, in 2025, there was a price increase of public health insurance premiums. Now, before we all freak out, this is normal. It happens every year. However, this year, this increase has been all over the news. So, what is up?

“The difference between this year and last year is that the price increase is significantly higher. This has left many wondering what to do. If you have been affected by this price increase, we have three potential solutions for you, so make sure to stick around.”

Context of Public Health Insurance in Germany

Let’s first give a little bit of context on how this whole thing of public health insurance works in Germany so you can make an educated decision. First of all, health insurance in Germany is mandatory. That means anyone moving here and living here needs to have health insurance.

  • You probably have yours already.
  • The thing is that public health insurance is controlled and regulated by the government.
  • What do I mean by that?
  • I mean the cover and the price are regulated.
  • We will talk about the price in a little bit, but first, let’s talk about the cover so you are also understanding what might be differences between different insurers in Germany.

Coverage of Public Health Insurance

Super interesting to know is that if you compare the coverage of public health insurance, they overlap by 95%, meaning they pretty much provide the same thing. The coverage includes things like access to general practitioners and specialists, hospital care including necessary surgeries, medical care after accidents, prescription medication which is subject to co-payment (sometimes we pay like €5 or something for medication or maybe a little bit more depending on the medication), preventative services like vaccinations and screenings, as well as maternity care including childbirth and postnatal care, and a lot more. Those are just like the basic main, let’s say, buckets.

Additional Coverage

Now, however, there are 5% that are up to the discretion of the individual public health insurers, and this is where you can find little nuances of insurers that are more suited for families, more suited for individuals, and those that are maybe more into alternative medicine. Some, for example, include the coverage of dental cleanings or professional cleanings, which is not an obligation to cover by the government. Jen, for example, has her professional tooth cleaning included with her AOK insurance. I used to take yoga classes that were registered as health classes that got subsidized by TK by 50% or even 70% at certain times. So again, if you are into that, maybe one provider is better for you than another.

Price Composition of Public Health Insurance

StatementExplanation
Extra coverage is 5% of the policy95% is the same for every health insurance provider
Price is regulated by the governmentStill, insurers can increase prices significantly
Price is composed of three main thingsGovernment plays a big role in price increases
All costs arising in a year must be covered by co-paymentsResidents and citizens share this responsibility
If costs rise incrementallyContributions must also increase to match them

Health Insurance Cost

To break it down and give more specifics about the price, we have the first bucket, which is the health insurance cost, which is the same across all public health insurance. If you compare, it’s all the same rate, and this rate is set by the government. The second bucket is long-term care insurance, which is also regulated by the government and is the same across the board. So every public health insurance provider has the same rate as well.

Provider-Specific Additional Contribution

Now comes the third bucket, and that is the so-called provider-specific additional contribution. This one is where public health insurance companies can, for themselves, decide how much or what’s the rate that they want to charge for that. At the time of recording, the lowest recorded rate is 1.8%, and the highest recorded rate is 4% of your income. Now, here comes the sauce of it all. So in the past years, the average rate has been 1.7% of a person’s income, but in 2025, that will increase to 2.5%, which is a massive jump. That’s why everyone is freaking out, “Why is it so expensive now?”

Impact of Price Increase

However, not every public health insurance increased this additional contribution rate that they have. I’d say pretty much everyone this year, yeah, but not to 2.5% or higher.

  • So if you want to know if you’ve been affected by this price increase.
  • Where you have the insurance name, the insurance provider, the tariff or the rate that they had for last year, and the increase or the tariff for 2025
  • And what’s the difference and how much it increased
  • This way, you can know how much you’ve been affected
  • And of course, this contribution you would see most in your pay slip
  • That’s where you will see the increase in the social contributions

Employer Contribution

Just for transparency and to make this complete, any of the social contributions including health insurance and long-term care, as an employee, you pay 50%, and your employer pays 50%.

  • So also when we’re talking about the increase, half of this is covered by you,
  • the other half is covered by your employer.
  • That is correct.
  • So that also means your employer also has to somehow figure out how to pay more for your public health insurance.
Understanding the 2025 Public Health Insurance Price Increase in Germany

Conclusion on Public Health Insurance

In conclusion, what we want to say is that public health insurance in Germany, 95% of the coverage of all of them, is the same.

  • Insurers increase the price through one specific component of how the price is structured
  • This change has impacted many policyholders
  • You can check the Google sheet we prepared to see if the change affects you

Price Increase Example

Now, what price increase are we talking about? Let’s put numbers to the table. Yes, and we know that TK is one of the popular public health insurance for internationals because they have a beautiful English service and also great cover. Let’s give an example of comparing TK with the BKK Firmas, which is the public health insurance that has the lowest additional contribution rate this year and hence is the cheapest in terms of price.

  • They also have a great cover.
  • Let’s say in the example we take someone that is earning €70,000 gross per year.
  • In this case, if one would switch from TK to the BKK Firmas public health insurance, one would save €217.2 in the year of 2025.
  • So this is about the increase we’re talking about around €200 a year in this example,
  • which, if I divide 200 by 12, we’re talking about €16-17 per month.

Perspective on Savings

So also, I think it depends on perspective. If you’re earning €70,000, €17 a month, I mean that’s what you spend on beer, maybe on a night out. But again, everyone needs to have the right information to make their own decision. And the saving could be exponentially higher depending on what health insurance you have because TK historically has been also relatively cheap already. That is true versus AOK, which was already a little bit more expensive. It might be even more expensive, and the savings might be more.

Options for Dealing with Price Increase

Now that we have context of what’s going on, the question is, what can you do? In our opinion, you have two options. Option number one is, don’t do anything. You’re happy, you love your health insurance provider, it’s fine, you’re aware of the price increase, you weren’t so affected, you don’t really care about €200 savings per year, it’s okay, move on.

Option 1: Do Nothing

Option number two is to actually change insurance providers, and for that, there are three ways that you can go about this. The first option to change is actually a new option that our trusted partner, Feather Insurance, has just created because of this severe increase compared to other years.

  • They have created an insurance switcher service that you can sign up to,
  • and it pretty much offers you the chance to change insurance every year to the cheapest public health insurance provider
  • so you always have the insurance, you’ll always pay the lowest price.
  • Now, this is an amazing service.
  • However, you should keep in mind that the cost of the service is that you are not guaranteed to always have a public insurance provider that has English language support.
  • So if that is irrelevant to you, this could be a great option for you to always save some money on the side every month and year.

Feather Insurance Switcher Service

Additionally, of course, when you change insurance providers, you need to wait for the card to arrive. So there’s always some sort of bureaucratic process that you need to wait and inform your employer. But if you don’t mind doing that, it’s a fantastic service, and this service is 100% free from Feather. So if you’re interested, you can also check their Feather Insurance Switcher Public Health Insurance Switcher.

Disclaimer on Switching Insurance

One small disclaimer: you can only switch public health insurance if you’ve been with them for one year or more. That is correct. And if you’ve been with your health insurance for less than one year, then you need to wait for that contractual year to be over before you can change.

Option 2: Change Insurance Providers

Option two is that if English is super important to you, then you can compare again with Feather Insurance. They have a comparison table of public health insurance providers that support English speakers, and for that, you can compare all four. They have four options at the moment and then see which one is the one that you like the most and maybe with the cheapest tariff, and you can go with that one. For example, TK is a super popular option as you already mentioned, and I don’t remember the name of the other one actually. Yes, BKK and the AOK. There you go, thank you very much.

Comparison of English-Speaking Providers

Statement
And if you’re an employee and you’re earning more than €73,800 gross per year in 2025, or you’re self-employed, you always have the option to also switch to private health insurance.
Now, this is an option that is often marketed as it’s the cheaper, it’s the better, and you can often save money with private health insurance, especially if you’re young and healthy.
However, we would never say just change to it blindly because there’s more aspects one needs to take into account about your life situation, your family setup, how long you are planning to stay in Germany, and other aspects.
So if you would like to evaluate whether it’s a good choice for you, there are two partners you should have a consultation with: that’s Feather, of course, and also KL for Experts, who do nothing else but advise expats in English in Germany on which health insurance to choose and whether a switch makes sense.

Private Health Insurance Option

I want to emphasize that they will not talk you into switching just because, let’s say, they get a higher commission for it, but they will really evaluate what is the better option depending on your life situation. And that is super cool. Just to also clarify, the reason why you were specific at saying that if you earn €73,800 in 2025 is because every year this number changes, right? Correct. And if you earn less than that, you must be publicly health insured. You don’t have the option to change to private health insurance.

Additional Information

The difference to this year from other years is that the price increase is significantly a lot, significantly a lot. This has left many people. This has never. You can do that, and then I can say the other 5%.

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