Check your payslip: health insurance rose, deadline is 31 August
Several statutory health insurance funds raised their Zusatzbeitrag — the top-up each fund sets on top of the fixed national contribution rate — with effect from August. For anyone insured with one of them, the money has already left their pay.
What catches people out is a change in the law that took effect in July 2026. Funds are no longer required to write to members individually when they raise the top-up. Many will find out only from a payslip, if they notice at all. A changed percentage buried in a payroll line is far easier to miss than a letter announcing an increase, and easier still if German is not your first language.
What the law did not remove is your right to leave. When a fund raises its Zusatzbeitrag, members gain a special right of cancellation that overrides the usual twelve-month lock-in. It runs only until the end of the month in which the increase took effect. For an August rise, that means 31 August.
The switch follows a fixed timetable. Give notice during August and you stay with your current fund until 31 October, with the new insurance beginning on 1 November. You do not send the cancellation yourself: you apply to the fund you want to join and it cancels the old one for you. Your employer is normally informed automatically, but tell them directly as well so your payroll is not disrupted.
Two things are worth weighing before moving. Funds differ in what they pay for beyond the legal minimum — professional tooth cleaning, osteopathy, travel vaccinations, bonus schemes — and those extras end the day you leave. And if you have an application for psychotherapy or rehabilitation that has been approved but not yet started, a new fund is entitled to review it again and may refuse it. Aids already granted, such as a wheelchair, cannot be refused, though a new fund may substitute a different model.
If you draw a statutory pension, about half of the top-up charged on that pension is covered for you, so the increase is often smaller than it first appears.
Compare your August payslip with July's. If the deduction has risen and you want to move, your application must reach a new fund before 31 August.