BERN. In about a month, every household in the country will receive the most reliably unwelcome letter of the Swiss year: the notice of next year's health insurance premium. The forecasts are now firm enough to plan around, and they point to another rise.
The comparison service Comparis expects the federal average premium to increase by 3.7 per cent for 2027. That would be a slowdown after rises of 6.6 per cent in 2023, 8.7 per cent in 2024 and 6 per cent in 2025. The Federal Office of Public Health is more pessimistic, pointing to 4.5 to 5 per cent after recording cost growth of 5.2 per cent last year.
The mechanics are fixed by law. Insurers submitted their 2027 premiums to the federal office in late July. The office approves them and announces the average adjustment in late September; policyholders receive their individual letters within days, and the new premiums take effect on 1 January.
Anyone who wants to change insurer for basic coverage has until 30 November. The cancellation must arrive at the insurer in writing by that date, sent by registered post to be safe; a postmark on the last day is not enough. The new insurer must accept every applicant for basic insurance, because the benefits catalogue is identical everywhere by federal law.
That last point is the one consumer advisers repeat every autumn. Basic insurance benefits do not differ between insurers, so the meaningful levers are the premium, the model and the deductible: telemedicine and group practice models cost less, and a higher franchise cuts the monthly bill for people who rarely see a doctor.
The average, advisers add, is rarely anyone's actual number. Premiums vary sharply by canton, age group and insurer, and cantons with fast rising hospital tariffs, among them Geneva, Basel City and Neuchatel in recent rounds, tend to land above the federal figure that makes the headlines.
The politics are already in place. Parliament opens its autumn session in September with the government's cost containment package at the top of the agenda, and the Federal Council has moved separately to cap the pay of health insurance executives at CHF 478,166, a gesture aimed at public anger that does nothing to next year's bill.
Insurers argue the numbers simply reflect reality: an older population, expensive new treatments, and a hospital system that still rewards activity over prevention. Doctors' associations agree on the diagnosis and disagree on the cure. The cantons, which run much of the system, want predictable funding above all.
What households should actually do is dull and effective. Read the letter the week it arrives, not in November. Compare the same model and deductible across insurers rather than falling for the cheapest visible alternative. Send any cancellation by the middle of November, by registered post. None of it is exciting. All of it is worth real money.
The federal average lands in late September, and with it the annual round of press conferences. The letters follow within days. The deadline that matters, 30 November, will be here before the autumn session is half over.