Widow’s pension
Double health insurance contributions confuse survivors
Updated March 11, 2026 – 7:14 a.mReading time: 2 min.
Those who receive old-age pensions and widows’ pensions are often surprised about higher health insurance contributions. But actually there is no double payment.
Many surviving relatives feel as if their health insurance is collecting twice – once from their own pension and a second time from their deceased partner. But a widow’s pension is considered separate income. It is not the dead partner’s pension. And the following applies to your own income: the more you have of it, the more contributions you pay into the social health insurance community. This is only capped by the so-called contribution assessment limit.
This limit determines the gross salary up to which you have to pay social security contributions. For statutory health insurance it will be 5,812.50 euros per month in 2026. If your gross income exceeds this, you no longer have to pay contributions to the health insurance company on the excess amount.
For incomes below this limit, the statutory pension insurance pays contributions to health and nursing care insurance. In total, up to 14.6 percent of your gross pension plus additional contributions will be due depending on your health insurance company. You pay half of the contribution yourself, i.e. 7.3 percent. The other half is covered by pension insurance if you are compulsorily insured with statutory health insurance. Pensioners who have voluntary health insurance can apply for a contribution subsidy.
However, there is no application that would allow you to pay contributions only to your old-age pension and not to your widow’s pension. This means that you do not pay the health insurance contribution twice, but only to a larger extent – analogous to your increased performance due to the additional income.
