Our communication final week on the inflation suffered by those insured with complementary health insurance has not gone unnoticed by the occupation! It should be stated that the remark is painful: shoppers coated by a person contract suffered, between 2020 and 2021, a median improve of their contribution of 4.3%. Difficult for a lot of to soak up, particularly amongst the aged as costs are larger as we grow old, and whereas buying energy is simply anticipated to extend by 1.5% this yr.
From there to set off the lightning of the insurance coverage lobbies, and mutualists specifically? Dubious innuendos, barely disguised insinuations, private assaults… we have been handled to the huge sport. But let low issues die of their very own poison, and deal with the substance. Two methodological questions have been raised which deserve my consideration.
First of all, the query of the pattern. We are accused of getting measured inflation on a pattern of 623 contracts despatched by shoppers following a name for testimonials. It is a pattern, now we have not hidden it, our methodology is public. However, its representativeness shouldn’t be minor: these contracts cowl, excuse the little, 123 totally different complementary organizations, together with all of the high twenty gamers in the market. And these are very actual will increase, with discover of deadlines for proof! The National Federation of French Mutuality (FNMF), for its half, communicates on a pattern of 32 mutuals, whose identify and choice standards are unknown (the least inflationary, maybe?). And depends solely on statements, with figures neither verified nor licensed. A technique that has curiosity, little doubt, however whose apparent limits ought to name for a bit modesty in criticism.
Then, the query of the technique of calculating inflation. In this space, two approaches exist. That of execs, who calculate worth will increase for an insured individual of a given age. For instance, examine the 2021 price for a 60 yr previous, to the 2020 price for a 60 yr previous as effectively. Very good. But this 60-yr-previous insured in 2020 might be 61 in the actual world in 2021. Therefore, if we wish to know the improve in the contribution that this individual pays between 2020 and 2021, it’s advisable to check his tariff 2020 (at age 60, due to this fact) at his 2021 worth (when he might be 61). So to the basic improve in premiums, we must always add age-associated inflation1 to acquire the evolution of contributions paid by shoppers; that is how the UFC-Que Choisir calculates.
Clearly, we aren’t speaking about the similar factor. Professionals calculate a rise in the supply, fascinating however theoretical, that no insured will know, except they’ve discovered the components for the elixir of youth. For our half, affiliation of shoppers, we search to know not a theoretical determine, however the actuality of the evolution of the contributions undergone by the insured; that which is withdrawn every month from their checking account. What does it matter to me to know what I’d have paid as a contribution, if solely I had stopped ageing?
Once these components have been clarified, I wish to name on the representatives of complementary health insurance coverage to appease them. And particularly mutuals, whose non-revenue and consultant mannequin is near that of an affiliation like ours. Rather than denying the will increase in contributions suffered by shoppers (requires contributions in help), they’d be extra impressed to deal with their raison d’être, which their members count on of them. Let us take a topical instance: the “covid tax” imposed by the authorities is decrease than the financial savings made by complementary insurance coverage because of the disaster.2. Why, underneath these situations, solely sure mutuals have undertaken to not cross this tax on to their members, some even going as far as to freeze their charges?
It is all effectively and good to advertise mutualist values on Twitter, however it could be obligatory to make sure that all the entities claiming this standing respect them, and to focus the criticisms on those that deviate from them slightly than on a company that does it correctly and transparency in its work as a whistleblower.
1 Depending on the group, this age impact is mirrored in a easy method, every year, or by extra brutal age teams
2 1.5 billion euros over two years, together with 1 billion paid in 2021, in comparison with 2.2 billion saved
