Usefulness and necessity of collective health insurance

Nominal health insurance premium rises

The cabinet announced on Prinsjesdag that the nominal health care premium will increase from EUR 1,747 to EUR 1,868 per year in 2025. An increase of EUR 121, around 6.9%. This means that the Basic Insurance is expected to cost an average of EUR 156 per month by 2025.

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Causes of a premium increase

The biggest reasons for the increase in the nominal health care premium are:

• Higher healthcare prices because new and better treatments and techniques are available.
• Healthcare wages are rising.
• The group of elderly people is growing, which further increases the pressure and costs of our health care system.

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Deductible remains the same until 2027

The mandatory deductible will remain at EUR 385 per insured person per year in 2025. It remains possible to increase the deductible by up to EUR 500 to EUR 885.

The coalition agreement has made plans to lower the deductible to EUR 165, but this is only possible from 1 January 2027 at the earliest. Until then, the deductible will remain the same.

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Changes in the Basic Insurance

The Basic Insurance will have a number of minor changes in 2025, such as the inclusion of a number of new medicines and treatment methods. For example, compensation for an exploratory interview in case of mental health problems, where a mental health care provider and social worker discuss the need for help, is reimbursed. But paramedical recovery care after COVID-19 is no longer reimbursed, because, according to Zorginstituut Nederland, it is no more effective than natural recovery.

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Risks: premium increases for employees choosing a package

In practice, we see that the increase in health insurance costs regularly means that employees opt for lower coverage or decide to stop their supplementary insurance. With all the associated risks. Failure or (too) late use of treatments, physiotherapy or psychology, for example, can cause increasing health complaints and thus pose a serious risk to the employee's employability.

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Make the most of your group health insurance

For you as an employer, collective health insurance is an indispensable strategic tool. This is because you can use them to control the costs of absenteeism, reduce absenteeism, promote the health of your staff and shape the overall health policy within your company. You can further reinforce these benefits by, for example:

• A fixed number of physiotherapy and/or psychology treatments to ensure your employees.
  • This gives you the certainty that your employees are well insured against frequent causes of absenteeism. And can you be sure that the employee experiences no obstacle to making use of this care.

• Making a voluntary employer contribution to participate in collective health insurance. Experience shows that an employer contribution has an incentive effect on participation in collective health insurance.
  • It is possible to make the employer's contribution from the work costs scheme available. This allows you to save employer costs.

• Check with your health insurer what options there are for a vitality budget.

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More information about the options?

Would you like more information about using collective health insurance as a strategic tool? Or any other options to make optimal use of your collective health insurance? Get in touch with Rene van Uitert or one of our others Corporate Wellness specialists via corporatewellness@krollerboom.nl.