Same word – health insurance – yet two very different products. The essentials in seven points.
1. Entry
Individual policies involve health declarations, questionnaires, sometimes medical exams – the insurer decides whether to accept you. Group schemes skip all of it: the team joins administratively, as one.
2. Pre-existing conditions
Individually, an existing condition can mean exclusions, surcharges or refusal. In a group, outpatient care typically works for existing complaints too – though the specific policy terms may limit the investigation and treatment of pre-existing conditions; inpatient covers may also carry waiting periods. Details in our dedicated article.
3. Price
Group cover is cheaper per person: risk spreads across many people and the company’s bargaining position is stronger. The same contents typically cost noticeably more individually.
4. Taxation
The corporate group scheme – under a genuine group contract with an undivided premium, where the part of the premium attributable to one insured person cannot be determined even by apportionment – is taxed as a specific defined benefit at a 33.04% employer-side burden; the employee pays nothing. An individual policy is paid from net income. Full breakdown in our taxation article.
5. Tailoring
Individual insurance is tailored precisely to you. Group schemes think in tiers – but different tiers can be set for executives and staff within the company.
6. Portability
An individual policy stays yours when you change jobs. Group cover is tied to employment and typically ends on exit. This is the genuine, must-be-said limitation of the group structure.
7. Which one for whom?
As a private individual – with no company behind you – individual products are the option; on request we help with those too. As a company leader, the group route is the more efficient way to protect a team: cheaper, better taxed, and everyone gets in. We specialise in corporate group contracts – that is our specialisation.
A question about your own team? Book a free 20-minute consultation →
Sources
- Act CXVII of 1995 on Personal Income Tax (Szja tv.) – Section 3 point 89 b) (the part of a group insurance premium attributable to the insured person; sub-point bb): where the premium attributable to the individual cannot be determined even by apportionment), Section 70 (6) b) (specific defined benefit)
- NAV (Hungarian tax authority) – Taxable insurance premium (guidance, 14 May 2020): the premium of a genuine group risk insurance with an undivided premium is a specific defined benefit; a premium that can be determined per insured person is income under the legal relationship
