It used to be like this: more than a hundred thousand people joined health funds in 2025

The number of new members joining Hungarian health funds increased to a level not seen in many years, 103.3 thousand last year: this number exceeds the 2024 figure, which also represents a multi-year peak, by a fifth – points out Mihály Barát, financial journalist at BiztosDöntés.hu. Thanks to the large number of new entrants, he adds, the number of members also set a record at health insurance funds, according to data from the Hungarian National Bank, and after a 5.8 percent (roughly 70 thousand) increase, it approached 1.259 million by the end of the year. According to the financial journalist at BiztosDöntés.hu, the increase in the number of new entrants can be explained by the fact that more and more people find it useful to take care of themselves for the purpose of preserving their health, and that they are taking advantage of the funds’ self-help services – such as school start-up support or mortgage repayment assistance. href=”https://biztosdontes.hu/cikkek/lakashitel-torlesztese-egeszsegpenztarbol”>support – also the benefits. “It should not be forgotten that the funds have recently placed great emphasis on digitalization, which has made their services more easily accessible, and they are also constantly expanding the range of available partner discounts,” reminds Mihály Barát.

In addition to the rapid growth in the number of members, membership fee income is also developing very well at health funds: the amount of membership fees paid by members increased by 16.3 percent, to 86.8 billion forints, while employer membership fee contributions increased by 13.7 percent, to 11.4 billion forints.

However, the amount of service-related expenditure also increased at a rate that exceeded inflation several times in 2025, and after an increase of nearly 18 percent, it exceeded 115.5 billion forints. The distribution of the amount spent on services did not change significantly compared to previous years, meaning that the largest share of the expenditure, 52.4 percent, was spent by the fund members on medicines and medical aids. According to central bank data, 37.1 percent of the amount spent went to private healthcare, which is roughly the same as the rate shown for 2024. On the other hand, the fund members spent more than one and a half times the 2024 amount, 4.9 billion forints, on the support for housing loan repayments, which is a self-help service, so this service now accounts for 4.2 percent of the total pie.

According to the BiztosDöntés.hu health fund calculator, the funds are gradually improving and expanding the services available to members, in addition to the fact that service providers are also running promotions to encourage members to join.

The card linking campaign at OTP Health Fund will last until the end of the year. The essence of this is that for those fund members who link their OTP Health Card to their bank card and their linked purchases exceed 100 thousand forints, the fund will refund 2 percent of the amount over 100 thousand forints. If the new fund member enters the OTP Health Fund via the BiztoDöntés.hu interface, they can receive their first health card free of charge.

The Patika Health Fund was launched at the beginning of the year