I have been having a long battle with my German health insurers, HEK (Hanseatische Krankenkasse). They have been trying to overcharge me for my health insurance, by a very large margin.

My insurance is Gesetzliche Krankenversucherung (statutory health insurance). This has a lot of advantages over private health insurance of the type common in the USA:

• The costs depend on one's income, with the rate set by the government;
• There are no risks in changing one's insurers, because there are no exemptions to health insurance cover due to pre-existing conditions;
• There are no issues about having to use "on-network" health providers;
• The insurers can only cancel an insurance policy in extreme circumstances, after a very lengthy due process has been followed.

Early this year the HEK began trying to charge me around €930 per month, instead of the previous amount of about €250, which was obviously wrong. When I looked at the letter documenting how this fee was calculated, I easily discovered a gross error: they had included a term for fees calculated from money that they knew I wasn't earning - the difference between my actual income and the maximum amount that may be used to calculate fees, which is meant for information only.

Since I am a pensioner, my account didn't contain enough to pay €930 per month, so the direct debit failed (in Germany, subscription services like insurance, utility bills etc. must normally be paid automatically by direct debit, rather than by cheque/check).

I wrote several letters to my health insurers, explaining their error, informing them that I would pay what I calculated to be the correct rate (using the percentages defined by the government and listed in their letter) manually, and notifying them that I would not reauthorise the direct debit until they corrected their error. My last letter was sent on the 2^nd of August 2023. I actually manually paid a little more than I calculated, just to be sure.

Today (17^th October 2023) I received several letters with correctly calculated fees, and a reduced premium for the current month as correction for my over-payments.

There are several things which bother me about this sorry saga:

1. None of the letters contain an apology, nor an explanation;
2. It took 11 weeks to respond to my last letter and correct my insurance premiums, which is an outrageous delay;
3. Because of HEK's delay in replying, I contacted two different firms of lawyers with a view to suing them if needed, but neither firm deigned to reply; if my insurers had failed to correct their error and I had really needed to take them to court, I would have had extreme difficulty in finding legal representation.

Germany is notorious for their convoluted and inefficient bureaucracy, but my experience is extreme even for this country.