Targeting the ‘highly educated’ is allowed

Targeting the ‘highly educated’ is allowed

Insurances specifically for the highly educated? Minister Kaag says it is allowed, according to her answers to parliamentary questions, as long as it does not lead to “undesirably high premiums” for others.

You may have heard the advertisements of Promovendum, an insurance company “only for the highly educated”. The idea is that well-educated people there have to pay less premium than, say, professional schooling graduates.

Insurers are forbidden to look at, say, religion, political colour, gender or sexual preference, but they are therefore allowed to vary their rates according to characteristics such as age, occupation, postal code or level of education.

Is an insurer allowed to differentiate then, according to education, the PvdA wanted to know from minister Sigrid Kaag (Finance). And how does the minister look at this “in light of the gaps in society”? She answered the questions just before the Christmas holidays.

In order to rein in the market, one of the requirements is an acceptance obligation for basic health insurance: whoever you are, insurers must accept you as a customer. The health ministry has therefore made agreements with Promovendum that the slogan “only for higher educated people” will not be used in advertisements for the basic health insurance, reports Kaag.

For supplementary health insurance, insurers will be allowed to set further requirements, as for other insurance policies. But will university graduates then turn to Promovendum en masse for those insurances? Kaag thinks not. “Consumers are guided by a wide variety of factors when choosing an insurer, for example the policy conditions.” (HOP, BB)