[The new private health insurance subscribers]

The new German legislation concerning the modernisation of statutory health insurance allows statutory health insurers to cooperate with their private health counterparts to offer supplementary health insurance. This study investigates the demand for such policies and how much someone is prepared to pay for them. Furthermore, the study tries to characterise the subscribers of supplementary health insurance. This analysis is based on data from the TNS Healthcare Access Panel on 896 statutory health insured persons aged 20 to 79 years. Statutory health insured persons show a great interest in supplementary health insurance policies. 67.3 % are prepared to subscribe to one or more policies and pay monthly 29.37 on average. Subscribers to supplementary health insurance policies also support a model of statutory health insurance which gives them an opportunity to choose between a basic level of cover and the extended benefits of a supplementary health insurance policy. In addition, they are high earners and rarely see a physician. They are very content with their statutory health insurers; however, their opinion about the German health system differs because part of the subscribers are very content and others are dissatisfied. Moreover, the study shows that persons who see a physician often and who assess their state of health poorly would significantly buy fewer supplementary health insurance policies. It is not certain why this group come to such a decision. However, if supplementary insurance policies help to determine the levels of access granted to see a physician then this study demonstrates that persons with a high demand for medical care and poor persons are excluded.