Risk-Adjustment in Long-Term Health Insurance Contracts in Germany

Johann Eekhoff (), Markus Jankowski () and Anne Zimmermann ()
Additional contact information
Johann Eekhoff: University of Cologne, Economic Policy Departement, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923 Cologne, Germany.
Markus Jankowski: University of Cologne, Economic Policy Departement, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923 Cologne, Germany.
Anne Zimmermann: University of Cologne, Economic Policy Departement, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, D-50923 Cologne, Germany.

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, 2006, vol. 31, issue 4, 692-704

Abstract: In the private health insurance (phi) market in Germany ageing provisions are used to reduce age-related premium increases in long-term contracts. Currently, the provisions are not transferred if the insured person switches to another provider. Thus, there are no incentives for the insured to cancel their old policy because they would have to pay higher premiums for the same services under a new contract due to higher age and the loss of their ageing provisions. There is a long-standing discussion if it is possible to intensify competition on the phi-market in Germany. The main question is whether the transferring of ageing provisions would lead to risk selection or not. We have reconsidered Meyer's model of transferable risk-adjusted ageing provisions.1 It has been shown that it is indeed possible to prevent risk selection in a competitive phi-market. We will present a number of counter-arguments to the most frequently stated criticism of the model.2The Geneva Papers (2006) 31, 692–704. doi:10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510097

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v31/n4/pdf/2510097a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v31/n4/full/2510097a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:31:y:2006:i:4:p:692-704

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/finance/journal/41288/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice is currently edited by Christophe Courbage

More articles in The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice from Palgrave Macmillan, The Geneva Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().