There is no one health insurance provider which gets tops scores in all categories. That is to say: there is no one insurer which will work best for every type of customer.
But there most definitely are insurance policies that are best suited to your specific needs. Here, moneyland.ch lists seven key criteria for choosing the right health insurance.
- Premiums
Premiums vary from one issuer to another and the differences in premiums charged for nearly-identical coverage can add up to more than 1000 francs for single adults, and several thousand francs for families. Deductibles play a major role in the premiums you pay, as do your age, location, the insurance model you choose, and a number of other factors. Your individual situation will determine which policy will work out cheapest. The best insurance provider for you is the one which offers the lowest premiums matching your specific profile. An interactive health insurance comparison which accounts for your individual circumstances can be very useful in finding the best health insurance for you.
- Health insurance model
Policyholders with an HMO, pharmacy, telemedicine or family-doctor policy pay lower premiums than those with standard policies. In exchange, those insured by low-cost policies are subject to various limitations, including a limited choice of doctors. But these limitations are not necessarily a disadvantage. If you always visit the same doctor before receiving further treatment, you won’t notice any difference when you switch to a family-doctor policy. Aside from the standard model, not all insurers offer all types of policies. The right health insurance provider for you will provide the insurance model that best suits your needs.
- Medical partners
Increasingly, health insurance providers are incorporating partnerships with medical networks like Medgate, Sanacare, Medix and Medi24 into their low-cost insurance models. Partners provide telemedicine services or even make entire HMO centers available to insurance companies. For many policyholders, the medical network through which they receive treatment is at least as important as their health insurance provider. Which medical network you will have to work with will depend on which networks your insurer partners with.
Practical: The health insurance comparison lets you filter health insurance policies based on the medical networks they work with. That makes it easy to find insurers that work with your preferred healthcare service providers.
- Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction with different insurance providers varies widely. This doesn’t only relate to the friendliness levels of call center representatives. Other important components like quality of service also affect customer satisfaction.
- Service quality
Quality of service is closely related to customer satisfaction and is measured in various ways, including how accommodating the insurer is and how efficiently they handle claims. The average amount of time it takes to be reimbursed after making a claim is shown on the info pages of policies in the health insurance comparison. Budget insurance provider Assura currently has the longest reimbursement waiting periods.
Another important difference is the way in which insurers pay medical bills. Some insurance providers are infamous for using the tiers garant payment method (reimbursement) for a large portion of claims. Budget insurance providers in particular often deliver below-average service, so it can be worth looking at the service provided and not just at the premiums charged.
- Financial reserves
An insurance provider’s solvency ratio shows the relation between their available financial reserves and minimum reserve requirements. The Federal Office of Public Health requires a minimum solvency ratio of 100%. If an insurer’s solvency ratio falls below 100%, premiums of policies from that insurer will likely go up in the near future. The solvency ratios of insurance providers are shown on the info pages of policies in the moneyland.ch health insurance comparison.
- Services offered
You have every right to get your compulsory health insurance and optional supplementary health insurance policies from separate issuers. In some cases, going with policies from multiple insurers can help you get the best possible coverage for your money.
Still, many Swiss policyholders prefer to get all their health insurance coverage from just one insurance provider. If that is your preference, comparing the various supplementary health insurance policies offered by insurance providers is crucial to finding the best one-stop health insurance solution.
Verdict: The best health insurance company – that is the right insurer for your personal needs – will possess these traits: It will charge the lowest premiums for the coverage you need, provide the insurance model that best suits you, partner with your preferred healthcare networks, have a high level of customer satisfaction, deliver high-quality service, have a healthy solvency ratio and offer the supplementary insurance coverage you want. You can use the free and unbiased comparisons on moneyland.ch to quickly and easily find the right health insurance provider for your needs.
More on this topic:
Unbiased comparison of Swiss health insurance providers
How to terminate a health insurance policy
Outpatient insurance policies compared
Hospital insurance policies compared
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