A Fifty-Year Relationship Deserves Due Diligence
Choosing a private health insurer is closer to choosing a pension provider than buying car insurance: you may still be a customer half a century from now, and switching later costs ageing reserves. That makes the company's financial substance a first-order criterion — yet most applicants never look past the premium quote.
Reassurance first: German PKV is tightly supervised by BaFin, ageing reserves are protected special assets, and industry safeguards exist for extreme cases. "Financial strength" is not about fearing collapse — it is about which insurer can keep premiums stable and benefits generous for decades.
Ratings Worth Reading
- Assekurata: the specialist German rating agency for insurers; its PKV ratings assess security, surplus strength, customer orientation and growth
- Morgen & Morgen / Franke & Bornberg: analysis houses rating both companies and individual tariffs — useful for tariff-level quality
- International agencies (S&P, Fitch, Moody's): mainly rate the large groups; helpful context for the listed giants
Key Figures That Actually Mean Something
| Figure | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Solvency ratio | Regulatory capital vs requirement — comfortably above 100% is the norm; very high values signal reserves of strength |
| RfB quota | Provision for premium refunds relative to premium income — fuel for refunds and premium stabilisation |
| Net return on investments | How well the insurer invests ageing reserves — feeds long-term premium stability |
| Administration cost ratio | Lean administration leaves more premium for benefits |
| Acquisition cost ratio | High values can indicate aggressive, churn-driven sales |
| Loss ratio (Schadenquote) | Sustainably balanced claims vs premiums — extremes in either direction warrant questions |
No single figure decides anything; trends over five to ten years matter more than one year's snapshot. The PKV association and insurers' annual reports publish most of these numbers, and broker analyses aggregate them.
Beyond the Numbers
- Premium history of the concrete tariff: the most honest indicator of calculation quality
- Age and size of the insured collective: stable, growing collectives spread risk best
- New business policy: insurers that periodically launch cheap tariffs to attract young customers and let old tariffs age badly are a known anti-pattern — ask how the insurer treats closed tariff generations
The Bottom Line
You do not need an actuarial degree — you need ten minutes with the right numbers. An insurer with solid ratings, a healthy RfB quota, lean costs and a clean premium history is worth a modest premium difference. Cheap today from a weak house is the expensive choice over fifty years.
Frequently Asked Questions
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