The end of the year is approaching and so it is also time to start thinking about your health insurance. Good to know: by choosing a health insurer, you can also contribute to a better world! We found out what to look out for when switching to green insurance. We also tell you what the most sustainable health insurance for 2024 is.
What is sustainable health insurance?
Important when choosing health insurance is, of course, the coverage of medical expenses and the amount of the premium. But there is also a difference between different providers in terms of sustainability. This is because health insurers invest part of the premiums they receive in different companies and sectors, thus having an impact on the planet. That impact can be negative, if the money is invested in polluting sectors such as the arms trade or the fossil industry.
It may sound a bit vague and abstract, but choosing your health insurance therefore matters. If you choose a health insurer that invests your premium money sustainably and better, you can thus exert positive influence. For instance, there are health insurers that invest your premiums in more sustainable sectors and organisations that do something good for the world. Think of green energy innovations, but also of reducing CO2 emissions and improving healthcare. So you indirectly contribute to a greener world with your choice of sustainable health insurance.
Assessing the sustainability of health insurance
But how do you know which health insurance is sustainable and which is not? For that, you can turn to two bodies that find out how sustainably health insurers invest premiums: the Association of Investors for Sustainable Development (VBDO) and the Fair Money Guide. They both conduct independent research into the greenest health insurance. The health insurer with the most sustainable investments tops the rankings.
The Fair Insurance Guide
The Fair Insurance Guide - an alliance of Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth, OxfamNovib, World Animal Protection and Pax - examines the sustainability of health insurers every two years. The organisation looks mainly at the companies the insurer invests in, but also how the insurer itself deals with sustainability. The sustainability score is based on 14 themes and sectors such as climate change, mining, human rights and animal welfare. The Fair Insurance Guide looks at both policy (i.e. what do companies say they do?) and practice (what do they actually do?). For each insurer, in addition to the total score, you can see the score per theme. So you can determine which is the most sustainable health insurance with regard to the pillars you find most important.
Criticism
Great, such a tool that gives more insight. The website is super clear and accessible. The only tricky thing is that there is also criticism from financial institutions about the chosen research methodology of the Fair Money Guide, the organisation behind the Fair Insurance Guide. What to make of that as a simple consumer? Our conclusion is that it is still a good platform to gain more insight into exactly what financial institutions, such as health insurance, do and how they differentiate themselves from each other, even if the results would be a little less black and white than the website states.
Association of Investors for Sustainable Development (VBDO)
The VBDO like the Fair Insurance Guide, awards sustainability scores on a scale of 0 to 5. So you can also turn to them if you are looking for the most sustainable health insurance. VBDO assesses the largest health insurers every two years on a number of topics: governance, sustainable investment policy, implementation and transparency (on policy and implementation). So VBDO also compares policy with practice.
The most sustainable health insurance according to VBDO
From the VBDO survey in 2023 comes a.s.r. as the most sustainable health insurer. Incidentally, VBDO looks at insurers in general, including those that do not offer health insurance. For this article, I logically only looked at the sustainable insurers who do. As number one, A.s.r. scores no less than 4.2 out of 5 points. This sustainable insurer scores more than 4 points on all the themes examined, with an outlier of 4.8 points for transparency about its sustainable policy. So a good idea to take out your health insurance there if you consider sustainability important! Achmea is right behind a.s.r. in second place, also with a sustainability score of 4.2. Achmea also scores well on transparency, but slightly less on ‘policy on paper’ - for this they receive 3.6 points. This is also the case for all insurers - except thus for a.s.r. Under insurer Achmea, the health insurances of Silver Cross, SeeZo, FBTO, Interpolis, The Christian health insurer and The Friesland. Finally, NN Group is third in the ranking of sustainable insurers. This insurer offers as Nationale-Nederlanden also offer health insurance. They score 4.1 points in the VBDO survey and score highly on the theme of transparency in particular.
The most sustainable health insurance according to the Fair Insurance Guide
The Fair Insurance Guide last assessed insurers on sustainability in 2022. There, too, a.s.r. ranked first. At a relatively large distance, Achmea and VGZ. Under the latter insurer, in addition to VGZ and VGZbewuzt, the health insurance policies of UnitedConsumers, Univé, ZEKUR, UMC Health Insurance, IZA, IZZ and Caring. A.s.r., Achmea and VGZ all score relatively well on the nature and health themes in the survey, but there is still a lot of work to be done. For instance, on human rights. In November 2024, the Fair Insurance Guide will update the list again and we will be able to see whether these insurers have become more sustainable in the meantime.
Switching to sustainable health insurance
Now that you know what the most sustainable health insurance policies of 2024 are, it is of course important to find out which basic insurance and any supplementary insurance policies will suit you best. It might take some time to find out, but it's worth the effort! With your choice of a sustainable health insurance policy, you will indirectly make the world a bit nicer and greener. You have from mid-November until 31 December to switch to another health insurance.
More sustainable tips from thegreenlist.nl
- Eco-friendly oral care: it's different than you think.
- We also delved into the world of pensions: A sustainable pension, is it possible?
- Not fun, but useful to think about: how to tackle a more sustainable funeral?
- RescEU: the European aid reserve that we need now.
Photo credits: Ron Lach (Pexels).
