[Anchor]

It is time for Friendly Economy with reporter Han Jiyeon on Friday. Han, people who have held indemnity medical insurance for a long time will have new options starting next month, right?

[Reporter]

Starting next month, holders of older indemnity insurance policies can also reduce their premiums.

You can do this by removing some coverage or switching to the 5th-generation plan.

You must have heard a lot about changes to indemnity insurance.

While the 5th-generation indemnity insurance was newly introduced in May, it is now the turn of previous subscribers.

The targets are contracts without re-enrollment conditions among the 1st and 2nd-generation policies purchased before March 2013.

This amounts to about 17 million people.

Since not all 2nd-generation policies are eligible, you must check with your insurance company first.

The first option is to keep your current insurance as it is.

This involves removing physical therapy such as manual therapy, non-benefit injection drugs, and non-benefit MRIs, or adjusting your out-of-pocket hospital expenses to 20%.

If you select all three, the expected premium discount rate is in the 40% range for the 1st generation and the 30% range for the 2nd generation.

This can be done at any time without a deadline.

The second option is switching to the 5th-generation plan.

While switching itself has been available since May, discounts will be attached starting next month.

The 5th-generation plan's premiums are already more than half cheaper than the 1st and 2nd-generation plans.

If you add the 3-year half-price discount cited as an example by the Financial Services Commission, the monthly premium for a woman in her 60s with 1st-generation indemnity insurance drops from the 170,000 won range to the 40,000 won range when switched to the 5th generation, and down to the 20,000 won range with the discount applied.

Since you are switching to your current insurer's 5th-generation plan, there is no separate screening.

However, you can only receive this discount if you switch within 6 months, and the actual discount amount must be verified through each insurer's product.

[Anchor]

Since cheaper premiums mean reduced coverage, we will need to weigh things carefully.

[Reporter]

Even if your premiums decrease, your hospital bills can increase further if frequently received treatments are excluded from coverage.

Under the 5th generation, non-benefit treatments such as manual therapy, extracorporeal shock wave therapy, and non-benefit injection drugs like vitamin nutrient injections receive zero insurance payouts at all.

It means it is not just a 50% payout, but zero won.

Among non-benefit treatments not covered by national health insurance, non-severe cases require you to pay half of the treatment cost yourself, so if 1 million won comes out, 500,000 won is out of your own pocket.

For outpatient treatment, you must pay a minimum of 50,000 won out of pocket.

For an 80,000 won treatment, the insurance payout is 30,000 won, and if it is 50,000 won or less, you may not receive a single penny.

If you do the math, it looks like this.

For example, if you switch and your insurance premium decreases by 50,000 won per month so you save 600,000 won in a year, but your out-of-pocket hospital expenses increase by 1 million won a year due to reduced coverage, you end up spending 400,000 won more than what you saved.

Therefore, you need to check which treatments you spend a lot of money on and whether those are excluded from the 5th-generation plan.

Instead, if you are hospitalized at a major hospital for severe non-benefit conditions, your out-of-pocket expenses are capped at up to 5 million won per year as long as you do not exceed the 50 million won coverage limit.

Since the half-price discount lasts for only 3 years, you also need to look at the premiums after that period.

Naturally, you might wonder what happens if you regret switching.

You can return to your original insurance without conditions within 3 months, and between 3 and 6 months, you must not have received any insurance payouts during that period.

Also, if you want to switch back again after reverting, you must undergo screening.

Financial authorities stated that they will inspect whether insurers provide proper explanations and whether they engage in tied selling of other products.

[Anchor]

The last topic is about housing prices in Gyeonggi Province.

[Reporter]

The upward trend that started in Suwon is spreading to Gunpo, Uiwang, and Giheung District in Yongin.

Apartments priced around 600 million won are showing strength.

In Seoul, even though Gangnam prices fall, Gangbuk pulls them up, extending the record-longest rising streak to 90 weeks.

What stands out even more these days is Gyeonggi Province.

Within a single week, the margin of increase is more than double that of Seoul.

The starting point is Suwon.

It is a place with high demand from office workers due to its proximity to semiconductor companies.

As Suwon prices surged over a short period, demand shifted to neighboring areas with less burden.

Gunpo, along with Yeongtong District in Suwon, rose by 0.58% in a single week, showing the highest increase in the Seoul metropolitan area.

This is analyzed as so-called price alignment.

Jeonse (lump-sum housing deposit) and monthly rent listings are scarce, the gap between purchase prices and Jeonse prices in cheaper areas is small, and policy loans can be utilized, so tenants whose Jeonse contracts have ended are flowing directly into purchasing homes.

In fact, Gwangju in Gyeonggi Province, a non-regulated area, saw an expanded margin of increase, and Pyeongtaek turned from a downward trend to an upward one.

Conversely, Bundang saw its margin of increase narrow for two consecutive weeks, showing that high-tier areas are taking a breather.

There are also forecasts that if next year's semiconductor performance bonuses flow in, housing prices in the metropolitan area may not easily decline.