Health insurance: why autumn is not the right time to decide

Every autumn, the same scenario plays out: cold calls, ads urging you to compare funds before 30 November, a sense of urgency. The reality is different — and often the opposite of what you're being sold.

The only appointment that really matters: early October

The new basic-insurance (LAMal/KVG) premiums for the following year are announced in early October. That's the only genuinely useful autumn move: a quick look at priminfo.ch, the official comparison tool of the Federal Office of Public Health, to see how much your premium is rising. Nothing more is needed at that point.

Priminfo has an advantage commercial comparison sites don't: it isn't tied to any broker or company, and shows every approved fund without favouring one.

Basic insurance: what really matters (and what doesn't)

If switching your basic-insurance fund makes sense, the process is simple:

• Compare on priminfo.ch, without going through a commercial site that steers you towards a specific insurer
• Sign up online with the new fund
• Cancel the old one, which can be done by email

On the deductible: only two choices make sense for an adult, CHF 300 or CHF 2'500.

The intermediate levels (500, 1'000, 1'500, 2'000) give the illusion of choice, but the premium saving they offer never makes up for the extra risk they place on the insured. Either you want to minimise your out-of-pocket costs if you fall ill (CHF 300 deductible), or you accept paying up to CHF 2'500 a year yourself in exchange for a markedly lower premium. In between, you lose on both counts.

Supplementary insurance: a completely different logic

Here, the approach I recommend goes against the received wisdom of the « systematic annual comparison ».

Supplementary insurance (LCA/VVG) is compared once, ideally early in your career, with an independent adviser who knows the real differences between providers — not just the price. After that, you stay.

Switching back and forth between companies brings nothing to the insured. The value of supplementary cover isn't only the price: it's the relationship of trust built with a provider who supports you over time — prevention, better care comfort — and whom you can rely on precisely when a health crisis strikes. That's exactly when, once your medical situation has changed, switching supplementary cover becomes difficult or even impossible: new exclusions or refusals apply based on your current state of health, not the one on the day you signed up.

Staying with a solid, lasting provider, chosen once with care, protects you better over 20 years than chasing the best price every autumn.

Why the « switch before 30 November » calls deserve your suspicion

A call pushing you to change health fund between 1 September and 30 November is, in most cases, an unfair commercial practice. The calendar simply doesn't leave time to do things properly: compare correctly, fill in a proposal, obtain a reasonable acceptance from the new fund, then cancel the old one — all within a window of a few weeks doesn't allow for a considered decision.

There's a second, more technical trap: once the 30 September supplementary-insurance cancellation deadline (for a premium increase) has passed, only the cover that actually rose can be cancelled. Insurers tolerate cancelling that specific cover, but not the other components whose price hasn't changed. A frequent result: the insured ends up with duplicate cover between the old and new company, without even realising it.

My advice: deal with this topic from January to August

Health insurance is an important subject, one that deserves to be approached with a clear head — between January and August, with no deadline pressure, with the time for a real analysis of your situation and your long-term needs.

The only exception to this rule: the quick check on priminfo.ch in early October, to find out your basic-insurance premium increase for the coming year. Nothing else justifies rushing in autumn.