This week HBI looks at how many people in Sweden, Norway and Denmark have got private health insurance and how that insurance is funded.

Official data from all three countries show that employers remain the main payor for both individuals and their co-dependents (co-insurance) and that individually paid PMI levels are a very small part of the coverage.

Health insurance coverage, in general, has nearly tripled in Denmark since 2006 but has levelled out since 2014. PMI coverage in Norway has also significantly increased since 2006, going up around about 500%. Data for the breakdown in payment was not available before 2006 but from then ‘group insurance/collective agreements’ has always taken up about 90% of the policies. Norwegian finance industry association Finans Norge says that collective agreements are employees insured through agreements that that company has entered into.

PMI growth in Sweden has been slower and has the lowest coverage of all three countries covered. The employer has always paid for a significant amount of the coverage but that has recently started to lose market share to ‘group insurance’, which is that taken out (and paid for) by an employee through their workplace or union.

For more data on employer-paid health insurance, watch out for the HBI Intelligence occupational healthcare report.