How can you think about pkv cover type for you and your children?

With private health insurance, there are multiple options available on the market. There are 44 PKV providers in Germany, which offer a variety of tariffs, ranging from basic coverage to extensive coverage. Having access to a single room, chief Physician, enhanced dental treatments is possible through the more premium PKV tariffs. While premium tariffs have a lot to offer in terms of coverage, the obvious downside is the higher monthly cost. That’s something that you need to decide based on personal needs, wishes and financial situation. When you think about choosing a tariff for your needs, we recommend not only comparing the tariffs with each other as they are today, but to also think about how these tariffs might compare to each other in the future. Let’s consider a simplistic hypothetical example. A 30-year old is considering 2 monthly tariffs: €400 and €600. PKV premiums are rising. Let’s use the average yearly increase of 3.4%, a number shared by the PKV-Verband here, even though different tariffs might have different yearly increases. After 10 years, these tariffs will be €559 and €838 respectively. Basically, a €200 monthly difference between these tariffs today becomes almost €300 difference 10 years later. The good news is that if you decide to go for PKV, it has a multiple of tariffs on offer. As an example, a 30-year old has access to 1800+ tariffs with a wide range of price points. When you use the calculator, you can enter a reference PKV value that you might be considering. We can show you whether we classify it as a basic, standard or premium tariff. If you are working with a licensed insurance intermediary and are evaluating different tariff options, you can also use our calculator to understand the difference in long-term costs for the tariffs under consideration. We categorise tariffs by cost into three segments: Basic (bottom 20%), Standard (middle 60%), and Premium (top 20%). Once you enter your chosen PKV cover amount, you can also see where in the range of options it lies.

When it comes to getting PKV cover for your children, you might notice that the tariff amounts are lower compared to tariff amounts for adults. This happens because of 2 reasons: one, children are assumed to have lower healthcare costs compared to adults and second, adults from the age of 21 to 60 pay 10% of their premium as ageing reserves, which are then used to lower monthly premium costs after the age of 61 onwards, when the healthcare requirements and costs of healthcare increase.