IKK healthy plus and IKK Berlin seal the merger: what follows for insured people

Merger in October

Two health insurance companies seal merger

Now things are happening faster than expected: The administrative boards of the two health insurance companies IKK Gesund Plus and IKK Brandenburg and Berlin (IKK BB) have agreed on a merger of the two funds. This is scheduled to be completed in October of this year – there was originally talk of a merger at the beginning of next year. If the Federal Office for Social Security gives its approval, the merger will create a health insurance company that will be one of the 25 largest in this country.

According to its own information, IKK Gesund Plus has 425,000 insured people, IKK BB has 211,000. After the merger, both health insurance companies want to operate under the name “IKK Gesund Plus”. The new health insurance company will be open to insured people from all over Germany.

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“The merger is taking place from a position of economic strength in order to act as a strategic shield for contributors,” the health insurance companies said. The merger is an early response to the enormous investment needs in these areas Digitalizationsupply and securing skilled workers. The two health insurance companies ruled out any redundancies for operational reasons. The regional offices, which are primarily in Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen should be preserved.

The plan is for the merged fund to start with an additional contribution of 3.39 percent. This would mean a significant reduction for those insured by IKK BB – the additional contribution for the smaller of the two health insurance companies is currently 4.35 percent. However, compared to all other health insurance companies, an additional contribution of 3.39 percent is still high. This is the additional contribution of those open nationwide TUI BKK at 2.5 percent. Regionally open cash registers, such as the BKK Firmus (2.18 percent), are sometimes even lower.

Hans-Jürgen Müller, Chairman of the Board of Directors at IKK Gesund Plus, announced that this would not be the last merger in the IKK system. At the same time, those responsible spoke out against state-mandated mergers. Recently, there have been repeated calls from politicians to significantly reduce the number of the current 93 health insurance companies. CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann advocated reducing their number to ten to 20.

In addition to the merger of the two guild health insurance companies, there is also a merger of the mkk with the BKK Pfalz planned. One also targeted However, the merger of Salus BKK and BIG Direkt Gesundheit was cancelled.