Switching rates in health insurance markets decrease with age: empirical evidence and policy implications from the Netherlands.

All consumer groups with specific preferences must feel free to easily switch insurer in order to discipline insurers to be responsive to consumers' heterogeneous preferences. This paper provides insight into the switching behaviour of low-risks (i.e.

Switching benefits and costs in competitive health insurance markets: A conceptual framework and empirical evidence from the Netherlands.

Competitive health insurance markets will only enhance cost-containment, efficiency, quality, and consumer responsiveness if all consumers feel free to easily switch insurer. Consumers will switch insurer if their perceived switching benefits outweigh their perceived switching costs. We developed a conceptual framework with potential switching benefits and costs in competitive health insurance markets.

Choice of insurer for basic health insurance restricted by supplementary insurance.

Choice of insurer is an essential precondition for efficiency in healthcare systems based on regulated competition. However, supplementary insurance (SI) may restrict choice of insurer for basic health insurance (BI) due to a joint purchase of BI and SI. Roos and Schut (Eur J Health Econ 13(1):51-62, 2012) found that the belief in not being accepted by another insurer for SI was an important reason for not switching insurer for BI for 4% of the non-switching Dutch population in 2006.