Contributions to statutory or private health insurance can generally be claimed in full as special expenses. Eligible expenses are those for basic care, i.e. excluding the share for sickness benefits, supplementary insurance, optional benefits or similar.

As the Federal Fiscal Court

The German Federal Labor Court (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) has already ruled that medical expenses paid on the basis of deductibles or co-payments under collective bargaining agreements are not (beneficiary) medical expenses. Health insurance premiums.

In a recent decision

the Federal Fiscal Court has determined that this also applies if the insured person chooses to assume payments of medical expenses himself in order to obtain reimbursement of contributions. As with the deductible, the insured person does not bear the corresponding medical expenses in order to obtain insurance coverage “as such.” It was therefore not possible to take the payments into account as basic pension contributions under special expenses.

It should be noted that premium refunds, insofar as they are attributable to basic coverage, generally reduce the health insurance premiums deductible as special expenses.