Health insurance communication in the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative analysis of crisis communication on websites

Background Since the beginning of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Germany in March 2020, there has been an unprecedented exceptional situation, which poses particular challenges for those involved in health communication. Health insurance companies play an important role here, as they act as multipliers of relevant information with their communication to insured persons. Objectives The core element of this paper is a comparative analysis of the COVID-19 crisis communication of health insurance companies based on findings from crisis communication and health insurance communication research. The aim is to highlight how the website communication of health insurance companies can be optimized with regard to target groups, information needs and textual design. Materials and methods First, selected models of crisis communication are presented to contextualize the empirical findings on this basis. The subject of the empirical study is a selection of statutory and private health insurance companies, with a sample of the ten insurers with most members in each sector. The analysis focuses on one of the central mediums of health insurance communication, the websites. Results and conclusions The results show that the communication of German health insurance companies could be implemented in a more target-group-specific manner. The linguistic comprehensibility of the information and the structure of the COVID-19 subsites could also be optimized. The analysis also shows that the insurers address prevention and the acute case of COVID-19 disease to varying degrees, but not follow-up care. However, the latter is one of the elements of crisis communication in terms of follow-up and coping with the crisis.