The German system of social security has a long history. It emphasises social insurance, which protects against illness, accidents at work, unemployment, disability, old age, and death. The system is funded primarily through contributions from employees and employers; benefits are either in the form of cash payments or services.
The main features of the German social insurance system are:
* Compulsory insurance: everyone is required to protect him or herself against risk.
* Solidarity: through their work and contributions the working population enables those who can no longer work to benefit from economic development.
* Autonomous administration: volunteer representatives of the insured and of employers co-operate in the management of social insurance.
There are five types of insurance within the system: health, accident, pensions, unemployment, and nursing. Each branch operates independently, but their decision-making process is bound by statutory regulations. Health insurance and accident insurance play an important role in workplace health promotion and protection.
The services offered by health insurance funds are governed by the Fifth Book of the Social Security Code. They mainly provide benefits in kind, meaning that insured persons receive health care services from suppliers who are paid directly by the health insurance funds. Health insurance is covered by the following funds:
* Local sickness funds
* Guilds' insurance funds
* Companies' health insurance funds
* Substitute insurance funds
* Agricultural insurance funds
* Seamen's health insurance fund
* Federal miners' insurance fund
The statutory accident insurance funds insure their members against accidents in the workplace, including occupational diseases. Their primary responsibility is to prevent accidents at work, occupational diseases, and work-related health risks. The benefits they provide are: medical and vocational rehabilitation, injury benefits or temporary allowances, nursing, disability pensions or survivors' pensions, and transportation costs and death benefits.
In Germany, professional and trade associations are the accident insurance carriers. They include industrial associations (for all enterprises in industry and the public service sector, agricultural and horticultural enterprises) and the mariners' association (for all of seafaring and sea-fishery enterprises).
In 1989, under the Act on the Structural Reform of the Health Care System, health promotion became a legal component of health insurance policies. This enabled health insurance funds to develop and finance a
