Industry agreement in the intermediary business declared generally binding
Health insurers are attracting the attention of politicians and the public regarding intermediary commission and telephone advertising. They revised the self-regulation in line with the new legislation – and the Federal Council decided that it should be universally binding.
Since 2021, insurers have voluntarily regulated the activities of their intermediaries for basic and supplementary insurance themselves in an industry agreement. The first version of the sector agreement primarily contained specifications on cold calling, the quality of consultations, training standards and commission ceilings for ‘external’ (including ‘untied’) intermediaries. On 16 December 2022, Parliament decided that an industry agreement should cover both ‘external’ and ‘internal’ intermediaries (employees of insurers). In addition, Parliament amended the legal basis so that insurers can apply to the Federal Council for the industry agreement to be universally binding.
Re-issue of the sector agreement
The sector agreement has been revised between the health insurance associations santésuisse and curafutura – since 1 January 2025, there has been only one association, prio.swiss, that represents the political interests of health insurers in the area of compulsory health insurance – in line with the new legal rules of the game. In accordance with the new legal basis, the limit on commission applies to both internal and external intermediaries. With the exception of this adjustment, the rules in the revised industry agreement remained largely unchanged. The ban on cold calling will remain in place, and intermediaries will be required to meet the same quality standards. A majority of health insurers have acceded to the revised sector agreement. This means that the quorum of 66 per cent was reached to apply to the Federal Council for a declaration of general applicability for the entire industry.
Declared generally applicable
On 14 August 2024, the Federal Council declared the proposed points (ban on cold calling, upper limit for compensation for intermediary activities and the preparation and signing of minutes of consultations) of the sector agreement to be generally binding as of 1 September 2024. The new sector agreement has been legally binding since then. The FINMA performs its supervisory role and intervenes if it suspects that insurers are not fulfilling their obligations.