BERN. The envelopes that decide Swiss household budgets are landing this week. Health insurers must inform every policyholder of their personal 2027 premium by 31 October, and anyone who wants to switch basic insurance for January must get a cancellation letter to their current insurer by 30 November. The federal health office confirmed at the end of September that the average premium rises 4.9 per cent next year, to more than CHF 410 a month.
The average conceals more than it reveals. Premiums vary by canton, region, age, deductible and model, and the 4.9 per cent figure lands differently in Jura, up 6.6 per cent, than in Glarus, up 3. The letter is the only number that matters, and advisers say it should be read against the market, not against last year.
The annual Deloitte study, published with YouGov at the start of October, puts the saving from switching to the cheapest suitable policy at CHF 702 a year for an average adult, CHF 44 more than last year and the highest the study has recorded. More than half of the 1,236 people surveyed, 54 per cent, say they are financially worried about their premiums, and Deloitte expects a high switching rate and a difficult autumn for the insurers’ retention teams.
The three rules of switching season
The first rule is the deadline: the cancellation must reach the current insurer by 30 November, not merely be posted by then, which is why consumer groups recommend registered mail or a tracked electronic channel. The second is that only basic insurance can be changed this way; supplementary policies follow their own contracts and notice periods. The third is that the cheapest premium is not always the cheapest year: the deductible, the accident cover question and the model, telemedicine, HMO or free choice of doctor, decide the real total.
Comparators report the usual October pattern: traffic on the federal priminfo calculator rises tenfold in the weeks the letters land. Insurers are braced for it. The transition to the new TARDOC outpatient tariff has delayed invoicing across the system and made this year’s cost estimates shakier than usual, one reason the 2027 rise came in near the top of the forecast range.
Relief later, bills now
Bern’s structural answer arrives later. Under the counter-proposal to the cost containment initiative, the government will set binding cost targets for the first time, covering 2028 to 2031, at the end of this year. Critics note, as our columnist argued when the session opened, that relief landing in 2028 does nothing for the premium due in January.
For this autumn, the advice from every corner of the system is the same and unusually brief: open the letter, run the comparison, and do not assume that loyalty is being rewarded. The deadline is 30 November.