Health insurer CZ wants customers to repay millions paid out due to computer error

An error in the software that automatically handles CZ’s declaration resulted in tens of thousands of the health insurer’s customers getting higher reimbursements than they were entitled to in 2022 and 2023. CZ is now demanding that money back. It involves millions of euros, the Volkskrant reports.

The error involved the assessments of dental treatments for people who had taken out additional insurance for this purpose. It concerns coverage for dental treatments that were the result of an accident. In some cases, CZ also paid out for procedures that were not related to an accident.

CZ announced that “an error has occurred in our systems” in a letter sent to affected customers at the end of January. The insurer said that it would reclaim the money and apologized for the inconvenience. For the insurer, it amounted to millions of euros of overpaid reimbursements.

The fact that the CZ customers are not to blame for the error is no reason for CZ not to reclaim the money. “The fact remains that people have received compensation to which they were not entitled,” the spokesperson said. If CZ doesn’t take the money back, all insured parties would pay for the mistake, “and that is not fair,” he said. Most customers will have to repay a few dozen euros, the spokesperson said.