NOS News•today, 06:00
Bailiffs are seeing more and more young people with debts. One of the main causes is payment arrears with health insurance, according to a tour by the NOS. What is particularly unfortunate is that many of these young people do not apply for healthcare benefits.
Flanderijn, one of the largest bailiffs in the country, currently has around 45,000 young people with payment arrears on its file. “That number is not getting smaller, in fact: we see it increasing by 1 or 2 percent every year,” says director Michel van Leeuwen. The bailiff notices that the health insurance premium is the first to be mentioned.
Young people miss out on money
To support people in paying for health insurance, the government has created a health care allowance. Young people can also apply for this. But a Nibud survey among MBO students in 2021 showed that many of them miss out on money because they are not aware that they can use it. Flanderijn also often hears from young people that they have not applied for healthcare benefits. “They’re afraid they’ll have to pay the money back later.”
Health insurers also see that young people suffer from disadvantages, but they do not form a “specific problem group”, a CZ spokesperson said. And in recent years, health insurers have also started actively approaching people with payment arrears. If someone is six months in arrears, insurers are obliged to register that person as a defaulter.
These people then end up at the government agency CAK, to which they have to pay a higher healthcare premium. “We want to prevent this, because it will cause people to get into even more trouble,” says a spokesperson for Zilveren Kruis.
Not up to date
But sometimes things go wrong. Layla Badoella ended up at the CAK when she was 19. “When I was told that I was registered as a defaulter, I was very shocked.”
At first she didn’t know what to do with it. Something that organizations that work with young people also notice. “From the moment young people turn 18, the health insurance premium is the biggest problem,” says Nancy Rijssel of the Young Adults Life Coaching Foundation. “They often do not have sufficient financial knowledge and do not know how to deal with this.”
Financial education
The idea is that parents also teach their children about financial responsibility when raising them. “But if there are already financial problems at home, parents cannot teach their children that,” says Rijssel.
According to Flanderijn, there is a need for financial knowledge among young people. Research by the bailiff shows that about 86 percent of young people would have liked to learn more about this at school. “There are already many initiatives to support young people, but we think schools can play an important role when it comes to financial education.”
