Reserves Are Not an Inheritance
Over decades a PKV member builds substantial Alterungsrückstellungen — ageing reserves set aside to cushion later-life premiums. Because they can amount to a large sum, people naturally ask whether they are inherited like savings when the policyholder dies. The answer is no: ageing reserves are not a personal account or an inheritable asset. They are a collective actuarial provision within the insurer, built to keep premiums stable across the community of insured members — not a pot that passes to heirs.
The key point: your reserves are not “your money” in an estate sense. On death, the policy ends and the reserve is not paid out; it remains within the insured collective, which is exactly the mechanism that keeps everyone else’s premiums cushioned.
Why It Works This Way
Ageing reserves exist so that premiums do not rise as steeply with age as pure risk would demand. They are calculated across the whole book of a tariff, not individually earmarked for payout. Allowing them to be inherited would undermine the very pooling that makes them effective. It can feel counter-intuitive that a large accrued sum simply supports the system rather than the family — but that pooling is the price and the point of stable lifelong premiums.
What Survivors Actually Need to Know
- Each person’s policy is separate: because PKV insures individuals, a surviving spouse and children have their own policies, which continue — they do not lose cover when the policyholder dies
- Funding may change: if the deceased paid the family’s premiums, survivors need to arrange continued payment of their own policies
- Notify the insurer promptly: report the death to end the deceased’s policy and stop its billing, and to sort any final reconciliation
- Where protection for family is the goal: that is what life insurance is for — a separate product designed to pass a sum to dependants, unlike health-insurance reserves
Planning Sensibly
If your aim is to leave financial protection for your family, do it through the right instrument — life insurance or savings — rather than expecting health-insurance reserves to serve that purpose; they cannot. On the practical side, make sure your family knows which policies exist and how they are paid, so that on a death the survivors’ own cover continues without a payment lapse while the deceased’s policy is wound up.
The Bottom Line
PKV ageing reserves are a collective provision that keeps premiums stable, not an inheritable asset — on death they are not paid out and stay within the insured community. Survivors keep their own individual policies, which continue as long as premiums are paid, so the practical tasks are notifying the insurer and ensuring the family’s own cover keeps being funded. For passing wealth to dependants, life insurance, not health reserves, is the tool.
Frequently Asked Questions
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