Tuesday, September 21, 2021
“Socially harmful behavior”
Insurer R + V is considering tariffs for unvaccinated people
Those who smoke pay more with certain types of insurance. According to the head of R + V insurance, such a model could also be available in the future for people who do not want to be vaccinated against corona. The social association VdK un consumer advocates think nothing of the idea.
The CEO of R + V-Versicherung, Norbert Rollinger, has proposed different tariffs for vaccinated and unvaccinated people. He argued that health insurance companies should already differentiate between smokers and non-smokers when it comes to tariffs. “That’s a community cost, after all,” he told t-online. “If someone ends up in intensive care because of Corona, it is significantly more expensive than a vaccination.”
Rollinger said: “Vaccination refusers show socially harmful behavior – if there are not good medical reasons that speak against vaccination in individual cases.” The insurance industry will “sooner or later” have to think about differentiations according to vaccination status. “When that will be the case depends on the question of how long the silent majority of those who have been vaccinated will let the stubborn vaccination refusers dance around on their faces.”
Rejection of the idea comes from the social association VdK and from the consumer association federal association – VZBV. Picking out an individual case with people without a corona vaccination “is not expedient,” said vzbv insurance expert Lars Gatschke to the “Handelsblatt”. “Then you would have to provide special tariffs in other cases, for example measles.” Gatschke emphasized: “There is no obligation to live healthy. That would also not be compatible with the risk classification of private health insurance.” Customers would be classified at the start of the contract. If the health of the policyholder then deteriorates, the insurer bears the cost risk.
The social association VdK argued similarly: “In the health insurance system, we also make no distinction between people who, for example, drive a car or not, between people who eat healthily and unhealthily,” said association president Verena Bentele on SWR radio. “And there is a good reason for that. Because then we would have an extremely blatant control system in health insurance that we as a society cannot want.”
Legal hurdles
Bentele called for a more precise differentiation between the unvaccinated: “Especially people who are insecure, for example because they have a previous illness and therefore not get vaccinated, of course have a different motivation than people who simply say: They just don’t want to be vaccinated. You will never find a 100 percent fair system. “
In addition, Bentele sees legal hurdles in the fact that health insurance companies would have to query the vaccination status of their insured persons for different tariffs: “In the case of vaccinations that are not compulsory, of course a health insurance company does not ask for the vaccination status. And we just don’t have a corona vaccination obligation. That’s why I think so for a difficult matter (…) That would first have to be changed by the legislature – so far it has actually not been possible. “