Methodology and Assumptions

We have assumed that if you are married, your spouse will cover their own health insurance contributions.
Although there are ongoing political discussions about increasing the retirement age further, it has been assumed that retirement age will remain at 67 for the calculator.
We don’t cater for cases, where someone might be planning to retire early or later than the standard retirement age.
To calculate the average annual salaries in the future, it has been assumed that salaries will increase at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), similar to the CAGR observed from 1991 - 2025. Data for 1991-2025 is available at Anlage 1 SGB VI Durchschnittsentgelt in Euro/DM/RM.
It has been assumed that the pensions will increase on a yearly basis with a CAGR of 1.96% per annum. This is the same CAGR, which has been observed in ‘Alte Bundesländer’ from 1991-2025. For detailed data, check Pg 259 in Rentenversicherung in Zeitreihen.
To calculate Entgeltpunkte (for pension), we assume that the ratio of your salary to the average salary in Germany will remain constant throughout your working life. For example, if you currently earn 1.2x the average salary, we assume this multiple remains the same until retirement. Since actual salaries tend to be below average early in one’s career and above average later on, we expect these deviations to balance out over time, making this a reasonable simplification to calculate your pension amount when you retire. You also have the option to override what we calculated and input your own value.
The PKV premiums for adults from the age of entry into PKV until the age of 60, are assumed to increase at 3.5% per annum. This is based on Page 53 of the study - Beitragsentwicklung in der PKV. Also, the PKV Verband shows an annual increase of 3.4% per annum over the last 20 years in the article PKV: Darum steigen 2026 die Beiträge. The actual behaviour will vary between basic and premium tariffs. It might also vary across different health insurance providers due to differences in underlying cohorts.
At the age of 61, we assume a drop of 9.1% in your insurance premiums. This is because PKV members are required to pay at least 10% surcharge from the ages of 21 to 60 to build ageing reserves. As soon as someone turns 61, they no longer pay this surcharge. A 10% surcharge means a 9.1% drop in your premium. These ageing reserves are used from the age of 65 onwards to keep the premium increases manageable, when the health costs go up.
For the age group 62 - 64, we assume an increase of 2.3%. We have chosen this value to be higher than the inflation rate (1.9% over the last 25 years) as the medical costs are higher at this age and the ageing reserves have not kicked in yet.
For the age group 65 - 79, we assume an increase of 2%. The medical costs will get higher in this age group but they are offset by the ageing reserves.
At age 80, we assume a drop of 4% in your insurance premium. This is a mandatory reduction via VAG § 150. This reduction can be higher or lower depending on how much money is left in the ageing reserves. There is no fixed reduction defined in the law.
From the age of 81, we assume the healthcare costs to increase at the rate of inflation. Here, we use 1.9% which is the average inflation rate over the time period 2001 - 2025.
We assume linear PKV increases annually. In reality, the premium increases are regulated and hence need to meet certain thresholds before they can be increased. This can result in premiums being stable for a few years and then having sudden substantial increases. However, this behaviour doesn’t affect the totals, which is the main objective of the calculator.
Children’s PKV premiums are assumed to increase at 2.5% per annum, at a rate lower than premium increases for adults since children, on average, have fewer medical needs.
We have assumed the rate of your annual salary increase to be 2%.
For the calculator, we have assumed the default life expectancy to be 85. You can change this value and see how the contributions change for different life expectancies.
We classify the PKV tariffs available in the market into three categories based on Price: Basic (the cheapest 20%), Standard (the middle 60%) and Premium (the most expensive 20%).
We assume the additional contribution rate will increase to 4.05% by 2029, based on estimates from the BMG (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit), with no further increases thereafter. This assumption reflects the fact that social contributions already stand at 43% in 2026 (with an average additional contribution rate of 2.9%) and would reach 44.15% at 4.05%. This significantly exceeds the government’s 2018 target of keeping contributions below 40%, and we expect political intervention to prevent contributions from surpassing 45%.
For Long-Term Care insurance, we follow the projections provided by BMG (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit) until 2060. Beyond 2060, we assume no further increases for the same reason outlined in assumption 18: social contributions would become unsustainably high, prompting political action to keep them manageable.
People, with no children, beyond the age of 23, pay a surcharge of 0.6% towards long-term care insurance. We have assumed this surcharge to remain fixed.
The growth of Freibetrag and the Mindestbemessungsgrundlage 2026 onwards has been assumed to follow the growth rate observed from 2013 - 2026.
For the field “how many children do you plan to have”, we add the contribution amounts starting from the current year, even if you don’t plan to have these children immediately. Since the primary focus of this calculator is on total amounts rather than yearly variations, and children’s tariffs are relatively low, this assumption should still provide a good estimate.
It is assumed that you will pay the PKV premiums for your children until the age of 20. In reality, this might only be 18, if someone starts their Ausbildung or University studies at 18.
If a self-employed person opts into GKV, we assume they will also opt in for Krankengeld, meaning they will pay the general contribution rate of 14.6% rather than the reduced rate of 14%.
For retirees, we assume that someone either pays the childless surcharge or they don’t, without accounting for the 0.25% reduction per child, as the amounts involved are small.