The end of the year is approaching and that means that everybody above the age of 18 in The Netherlands has about 5 weeks left to decide whether we want to switch to a different health insurance company. The average fee paid for a health insurance in the Netherlands in 2025 will be 158 euros (so 1896 euros a year). In a lifetime this is 117.552 euros (if you reach an age of 80), and I have not corrected this number for inflation so in reality the number is even higher. If I spend over 117 thousand euros, I want to make sure it is spend well. Because your health insurance invests your money to be able to keep paying for health care. I want them to invest this money the same way as I do: sustainably and fair. Today I want to tell you more about choosing a sustainable health insurance.
15 different health insurance companies
In the Netherlands we have 15 different parties to choose from if you’re looking for a health insurance. When you’re looking for a health insurance as an individual, you’ll have more options than 15. That’s because the 15 big insurance companies have small sub-insurance companies below them, but they’re part of the same company in the end.
Why choosing a sustainable health insurance is important
Insurance companies invest their resources because they have to make sure their money grows in worth. This way they’re able to pay for everyone’s health care. This is the case for all insurances. Whether that is for health care, for houses, a funeral, a car, etc. Insurance companies therefore have huge power (because they have huge amount of money). If they choose to invest in the wrong things (let’s say, weapons), we as a society as a whole suffer from this. But if they make the right decisions, we as a society can benefit from this (if they invest in renewable energy for example). I’ve mentioned before that it is really important to choose a sustainable bank to make sure your money is invested sustainably. This principle is the same with insurances. If you choose the right health insurance, you decrease your negative impact and increase your positive impact!
Choosing a sustainable health insurance with EerlijkeGeldWijzer
If we want to be choosing a sustainable health insurance, we can compare these 15 provides on 10 different subjects, from climate change, gender equality to investments in weapons. The website www.eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl/verzekeraars offers this information in useful overviews. I will will discuss the results of the website below.
Which health insurance company is most sustainable?
So, which health insurance company in The Netherlands is the best? Well, this depends. I will tell you more about what is best in three different ways. Which company has the best policies, which company has the best actual practices and which company has the best score on both policies and actual practice.
Please note: Eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl shows a list of scores for all parties. This list is based only on the scores on policies. They do not include the actual practice scores in the rating. I don’t know exactly why this is the case. I would say that the policy research is more extensive and stable.
1 | The company with the best policies
If you look at which party has the best policies (and therefore intentions), there are two parties with the exact same score. A.S.R. and Achmea. They score an 8.3/10 when it comes to their policies. Eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl lists A.S.R. as number 1 and Achmea as number 2. That’s because A.S.R. also scores some 10’s, Achmea doesn’t. Achmea is stable and doing good on all fronts. A.S.R. has some excellent score (10/10) but also some which are significantly lower (6/10). Which one is actually number 1 therefore comes down to you. Do you want a party which does excellent in some fronts but way less in others? Or a party which does pretty good on all fronts, but never excellent?
2 | The company with the best actual practice
If you want to choose the party which has the best score when it comes to actual practice, the best party to choose is CZ. They score 8/10 when it comes to actual practice. Their score on policies is 7/10. This might seem odd. How can a company do better in practice than on paper? Well, this is probably coincidence. The actual practice scores are based on 8 different field research papers from the past two years. The policies are scored in 10 different categories. One party can therefore have no policies on let’s say weapon investments, but have a good actual practice score because in this specific field research on the actual practice because they were coincidently found to not have invested in weapons. But this was not intentionally.
3 | The company with the best policies and actual practice combined
If you compare the policy scores and the actual practice scores, two parties do best. Achmea and CZ. Achmea scores 8,3/10 on policies and 7/10 on actual practice. CZ scores 7,3/10 on policies and 8/10 on actual practice. I would personally say Achmea is the better choice, because the research done for the policies score is way more extensive than the actual practice scores. And like I said, the actual practice scores may be a coincidence. A company may not have policies to not invest in fur, but may coincedently not have invested in it when the research for actual practices was done. I’d therefore say that Achmea is the best party when I combine policies and actual practices.
The company I personally choose this year
I am currently insured at A.S.R. In 2022, they were the absolute best with a policy score of 8,7. This year (2024), they have the same score as Achmea, both a 8,3. Achmea had a 7,3 score last year. This means they have improved a lot in one year! 1 point exactly. In the contrary, A.S.R.’s score is 0,4 lower. They are going the wrong way. I think that’s a shame. Adding to that is the fact that Achmea is more stable on policies. Their lowest score is 7,0 and their highest is 9,0. For A.S.R., their lowest score is 6,0 and their highest is 10,0. I rather have a higher bar at the bottom to be honest.
And lastly, Achmea has a better actual practice score. A.S.R. has good policies, but apparently they don’t live up to them. It depends on how you see this. You can see it, like me, as nice paperwork but no good actions. But of course you can also see this as a company setting the bar high to show ambitions like nobody else does, but struggling to live up to it. This may take time.
Me personally, I am going to switch this year. I am switching from A.S.R. to Achmea, for all the reasons I just listed. For me, the actual practice weighs quite heavy. I am done with companies promising me things and then not living up to them. Achmea has the same score in policies as A.S.R., but their actual practices are better. So for the coming year, my euros are going to them.
Which health insurance company should you choose?
I can’t really advice you on what to do. I listed the options for you and have shown you where you can find all the information you need. That’s most important to me. In the end, you may have a specific subject which is really important to you. Maybe you base your decision entirely on that subject. And it also really depends on whether you care more about policies or actual practice. Eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl is there to guide you. Now it’s up to you when it comes to choosing a sustainable health insurance.
The difference between 2022 and 2024
Eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl does this research every two years. In 2022, the average score on policies was 5,0 on average for all parties together. That is horrendous. In 2024 the average score is 6,0 for all parties together. I see this as very good news, because it’s improving. When we’re looking at the absolute numbers, 4 parties have a lower score than in 2022, but 11 parties have a higher score. Insurance companies are slowly taking responsibility and making their investments better. That makes me very positive.
Yours sincerely,
Romee