The head of one of Germany’s major statutory health insurers has warned that residents could face significant increases in health insurance contributions within the next two years.
Andreas Storm, CEO of DAK-Gesundheit, said the recent CDU/CSU-SPD coalition agreement will likely lead to higher additional contributions (Zusatzbeiträge) for insured individuals. These additional contributions are paid on top of standard health insurance premiums and help cover services such as cancer screenings, contraception, and teeth cleaning, especially for younger patients.
While not all statutory health insurers charge this fee, those that do require customers to pay it in full.
In January 2025, the federal government increased the average additional contribution rate from 1.7% to 2.5% of gross monthly income. Storm now predicts that by the end of 2025, this rate could rise again by 0.5 percentage points, meaning workers may have to pay an additional 0.25% of their income, or €25 more per €1,000 earned per month, starting in 2026.
“If no further action is taken, a contribution tsunami is inevitable with this coalition agreement,” Storm told the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper. “Combined with the expected rise in long-term care insurance (Pflegeversicherung), we are heading towards total social security contributions of 43%.”
Coalition Cuts Planned Support, Says Storm
The new German government, made up of CDU/CSU and SPD, finalized its coalition agreement in early April after more than a month of negotiations.
According to Storm, early drafts of the agreement had included €20 billion in funding to cover non-insurance costs in 2025 and 2026. These are services insurers are required to offer despite not falling under their primary insurance mandate — such as childbirth.
The original draft also included more than €9 billion in planned support for long-term care insurance.
However, Storm claims all such financial support was removed from the final version of the agreement. “All concrete measures mentioned in the drafts that could have helped keep social security contributions stable were deleted,” he said.
Storm warned that failing to properly fund Germany’s already strained insurance system could damage the economy. “This is poison for the economy,” he said.
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