Statutory contributions depend on income; private premiums depend on your age and health at entry. Everything else follows: one system grows with your earnings, the other with your years.
✓ Verified: 01/08/2026
WHAT TO DO
The two systems calculate money differently, and that is the heart of the decision. The statutory one takes a share of income; the private one charges a risk price fixed at entry. So one grows with earnings and the other with age.
Statutory contributions and fund comparisons work well via krankenkasseninfo.de↗; private offers are compared through Check24↗, while Ottonova↗ and Feather↗ serve English-speaking customers.
I calculated only for myself. With the second child it emerged that private cover insures each person separately — and the whole arithmetic flipped.
Ask for the private premium not only for today but for ages fifty and sixty. Good advisers provide it; poor ones change the subject.
Income, within a lower and an upper limit. Even on low earnings it does not fall below a minimum, and above a certain ceiling it stops rising. If income falls, it can be reassessed on presentation of evidence.
Your age at entry, your state of health and the level of cover chosen — not your income. Entering young and healthy means a low premium, but it rises with age and with general medical cost inflation, regardless of what you earn.
More than anything else. Statutory cover includes a non-earning partner and children at no extra contribution. Privately, every family member is insured separately and at cost — for families with children this point often decides on its own.
Statutory contributions fall with income down to the minimum. Private premiums do not track earnings at all, so a bad year costs the same — and that is precisely the scenario to model before deciding.