Every 2027 Dutch health premium is public by 12 November: have these four numbers ready first

The Dutch switching season does not start when you remember it. It starts on 12 November, because the law requires every insurer to put next year's conditions and premium on its own website before that date. Until then nobody can compare anything, since the figures do not yet exist. After it, you have until 31 December to cancel the old policy and until 1 February to take out a new one, with cover backdated to the first of January. The calendar trips up new arrivals because it holds three different deadlines, and because the most expensive line of all is not on this calendar at all: whether you keep the health allowance is settled by what sits in your account on 1 January.

• Conditions and premiums must be published no later than 12 November, so there is nothing to compare before then. (source 1)
• Cancel by 31 December, take out the replacement by 1 February, and cover runs from 1 January. (source 1)
• An insurer must accept you for basic cover but may refuse supplementary cover, and waiting periods apply, with dental work given as the six-month example. (source 1)
• Health allowance income ceiling: 40.857 euro a year on your own, or 51.142 euro jointly with an allowance partner. (source 2)
• Health allowance savings ceiling: 146.011 euro alone or 184.633 euro jointly, measured on 1 January and no other day. (source 2)
• A bill raising the compulsory deductible from 385 to 455 euro sits before the lower house as dossier 36943 and has not been voted on. (source 3)

Once the figures land, two subtractions are yours to do and no comparison site does them for you. First, take the monthly premium you pay now, subtract the monthly premium of the policy you are eyeing, multiply by twelve, and you have the saving over a full year. Then subtract the difference between the two deductible columns, and what survives is the real saving. The second sum is the one almost nobody does. If you raise your own deductible voluntarily to push the premium down, the maximum you may add is 500 euro, so the monthly saving multiplied by twelve has to beat 500 euro before the trade makes sense, and that 500 euro is cash you produce in one go in a bad year.

The savings line is what hurts recent arrivals most. Move money over from your home country, sell a property, or simply receive a lump sum in December, and if the total on 1 January crosses that ceiling the allowance is gone for the entire year, even if the money is spent again in February. Eligibility only returns the year after. So the thing to settle before the year ends is not which insurer to pick, but what your balance will read on the first of January.

Hokimi field note: before 12 November, do one small thing and save this year's policy conditions. When the new terms appear, the comparison that matters is the same insurer this year against next year, not somebody else's advertising.