Health Insurance 2027: Choosing Your Deductible, With a Worked Example

1. The official numbers for 2027

On 29 September 2026 the Federal Council published the approved premiums. The average across everyone insured is CHF 412 a month, up 5.0% or CHF 19.70. For adults the average is CHF 487.60, up 4.9% (EDI / BAG). The headline number is averaged across everyone insured, children included, so if you are an adult, CHF 487.60 is the fairer benchmark. Our official figures guide has the full breakdown by age group and canton.

For context, this is how the average increase has moved:

Source: RTS. The increases had been getting smaller, but they have not stopped, and a smaller percentage on a higher base still means more francs each year.

2. Why costs keep climbing

Premiums follow costs. The KOF Swiss Economic Institute at ETH Zurich, forecasting for the federal government, puts the cost of basic insurance per insured person at CHF 4,968 in 2025, CHF 5,191 in 2026 (+4.5%) and about CHF 5,400 in 2027 (+4%) (reported by SDA).

More is covered than before

The list of what basic insurance must pay for keeps growing. Comparis names three recent additions as cost drivers: psychotherapy by psychologists (up 9.8% to CHF 86 per insured person), weight-loss injections, and paid care by family members (Comparis). The rollout of the nursing initiative (Pflegeinitiative) adds further cost.

Home care is the fastest-growing item

Spitex, home nursing care, rose 13% in 2025 to CHF 173 per insured person, then by 14% in the first quarter and 15% in the second quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier (BAG cost monitoring, via SDA).

Reserves are back, but they will not absorb the growth

Insurers made a combined surplus of almost CHF 569 million in 2025, all of it added to reserves, which now stand at CHF 8.6 billion. As bonus.ch points out, that helps, but it cannot offset cost growth of 4% to 5% a year. The BAG also expects a slight catch-up effect, because premiums collected in 2026 are estimated not to fully cover expenses.

The new doctors' tariff is blurring the numbers

On 1 January 2026, TARDOC and new outpatient flat rates replaced TARMED, the tariff doctors had used since 2004 (BAG). The switch delayed a lot of billing. Recorded outpatient doctors' costs fell 4% in the first quarter and 16% in the second, which made total costs look almost flat (+0.4% in the second quarter). Those invoices have not disappeared; they will arrive later. For 2026 to 2028 the tariff partners must keep TARDOC cost-neutral within a corridor of +1.5% to −1% a year (FMH), and a daily limit on billable services is planned for 2027.

3. Why your canton matters more than the average

Premiums are set per canton and per premium region within it, so the national average tells you little about your own bill. In 2026 the average premium across all insured people was:

Source: Handelszeitung, from BAG figures. Someone in Ticino pays nearly twice as much as someone in Zug for the same legally defined cover.

Costs are also growing at very different speeds. In the second quarter of 2026, costs rose 9.6% in Schaffhausen and fell 8.7% in Zug, against +0.4% nationally (BAG cost monitoring, via SDA). Cantons with fast cost growth tend to see larger premium increases the following year.

4. What you can do about it

Basic insurance covers exactly the same treatments at every insurer, so the cheapest policy for your situation gives up nothing in coverage. Insurers must also accept you for basic insurance whatever your age or health, so switching is never a risk to your cover. For the full explanation of each option, see our Swiss health insurance guide.

Compare on priminfo first

priminfo.admin.ch is run by the Federal Office of Public Health. It lists every insurer's premium for your postcode, age, deductible and model, with no advertising and no sign-up. The new premiums appear there as soon as they are published.

Pick your deductible with arithmetic, not instinct

Adults can choose a deductible (Franchise) between CHF 300 and CHF 2,500. After it, you pay 10% of further costs up to CHF 700 a year, plus CHF 15 per day in hospital (BAG). The law caps the discount for a higher deductible at 70% of the extra risk you take on (BAG): 70% of the CHF 2,200 difference is CHF 1,540 a year, the most any insurer can give you for choosing CHF 2,500 over CHF 300.

We worked out where the two meet. With the full CHF 1,540 discount:

So the bet is lopsided: in a healthy year CHF 2,500 saves you up to CHF 1,540, and in a very bad year it costs you at most CHF 660 more. The catch is that many insurers give less than the maximum discount. With a CHF 1,200 discount the break-even falls to about CHF 1,640 of bills a year; with CHF 1,000 it falls to about CHF 1,420. priminfo shows you the actual premium for each deductible, so you can check your own numbers.

Consider an alternative insurance model

If you agree to a fixed first point of contact, insurers give you a discount, typically 10% to 25% depending on the model and insurer, with HMO group practices usually at the top of that range. The treatments covered do not change.

• HMO: you go first to a designated group practice.
• Family doctor (Hausarzt): you go first to a GP you have nominated.
• Telmed: you call a medical advice line before seeing a doctor.

Emergencies are always exempt from these rules.

Ask for generics

Since 1 January 2024 you pay a 40% co-payment on a brand-name medicine when a much cheaper generic exists, instead of the usual 10%. If there is a medical reason you need the original, the normal 10% applies, but your doctor has to document it (SRF).

Check whether you qualify for a premium subsidy

Cantons reduce premiums for people on lower and middle incomes (individuelle Prämienverbilligung, IPV). Each canton sets its own income limits and procedure, but federal law requires them to cover at least 80% of the premium for children and at least 50% for young adults in education in lower and middle-income households (BAG). The subsidy goes straight to your insurer and reduces your monthly bill.

Example, Canton Zurich: the 2027 subsidy is normally based on your 2024 tax data. The SVA Zurich first pays 80% of the provisional amount and settles the rest once your 2027 tax assessment is final. Applications for 2027 are accepted until 31 March 2028 (SVA Zurich). Our guide to premium reduction in Switzerland covers the other cantons.

5. An example: one newcomer's first two years

Year one: the letter that arrived one day late

Elena moved to Zurich for a job and, like most newcomers, took out basic insurance in her first weeks with whichever insurer a colleague mentioned. She picked the CHF 300 deductible because it sounded like the safe option. Nobody had explained that it was also the most expensive one.

In late September a letter arrived with her new premium. It had gone up again. She looked on priminfo, found an insurer charging about CHF 45 a month less for exactly the same cover, and decided to switch. She was busy through November, wrote her cancellation letter on the evening of 27 November and dropped it in a post box.

It reached her insurer on 1 December. The rule is that the letter must arrive by 30 November; the postmark does not count. Her cancellation was invalid, she stayed with the old insurer for another full year, and the new insurer she had signed up with simply never started. At CHF 45 a month, the missed day cost her about CHF 540.

Year two: doing it properly

The following autumn Elena did three things differently. She applied to the new insurer first, in October, and waited until they confirmed she was accepted. She sent her cancellation to the old insurer by registered post in the first week of November, so she had proof of the delivery date. And she kept both confirmations until January, when the first invoice from the new insurer arrived and the old one stopped.

The first step matters more than it looks. The old insurer only lets you go once the new one has confirmed that you are covered without a gap, so the two companies have to talk to each other (Art. 7 para. 5 KVG; priminfo). Starting early means a slow reply cannot push you past the deadline.

The harder question: CHF 300 or CHF 2,500?

Switching insurer was the easy saving. The deductible was the decision Elena kept putting off, because it felt like a bet on her own health. Every comparison site told her the CHF 2,500 deductible was cheaper and then warned her about how much she could have to pay. None of them told her which one was right for her.

So she did the arithmetic from section 4 with her own numbers. In her first year she had been to the doctor twice and bought some medication: about CHF 400 of bills in total. On the CHF 300 deductible she had paid CHF 310 of that herself (the CHF 300 deductible plus 10% of the remaining CHF 100). Her new insurer offered CHF 1,200 a year off the premium for choosing CHF 2,500, a bit less than the legal maximum of CHF 1,540.

What stopped her was the bad-year scenario. With a CHF 1,200 discount, a year with large bills would leave her paying up to CHF 3,200 out of pocket instead of CHF 1,000, which works out at CHF 1,000 worse overall once the discount is counted. That was the number that scared her, and it is a real one.

Her answer was to take the CHF 2,500 deductible and move the CHF 100 a month she was saving on premiums into a separate savings account. After about ten months, that account covers the worst case. From then on the higher deductible costs her nothing she cannot absorb, and in every healthy year it saves her over a thousand francs.

That does not make CHF 2,500 right for everyone. Had Elena been expecting an operation, regular physiotherapy or expensive long-term medication, the same arithmetic would have pointed firmly to CHF 300. The point is that the decision can be worked out, and it takes about ten minutes with your own bills and the premiums shown on priminfo.

6. Key dates for 2026 and 2027

For both switching deadlines, what counts is the date your insurer receives the notice, not the postmark, so send it by registered post with time to spare (priminfo).

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