[Mortality in relation to type of insurance--an empirical study with representative German data 1974 to 1990]

In Germany different forms of insurance funds (private funds, social security for blue collar or for white collar workers, firm-specific funds) secure against sickness risks. Actual governmental policy is to increase the competition between funds by introducing the possibility to switch from one to the other. In order to compensate for the differences in risk of health status between individual members a compensation payment planned according to age and sex of the members. In 1974 a representative sample of the adult West German population has been asked about its sickness fund membership (among other questions). A new epidemiological concept, the demographic variant of the relative survival method, is used here to determine whether mortality in the 16 years after 1974 differed between the sickness fund members. Even after exact demographic control members of private sickness funds survived considerably better than members of other insurance funds. The highest mortality was found for members of the social security of blue collar workers (AOK). These results show that apart from the pure demographic factors other important health related differences exist between members of different sickness funds.