In its judgment of 27 May 2026, the Federal Supreme Court (the Court) dismissed an appeal by the Common Institution HIA (Gemeinsame Einrichtung KVG) against a judgment of the Federal Administrative Court of 6 October 2025 (C-7370/2024), confirming that the Common Institution HIA had wrongly declined to consider an insured person's application for a premium reduction for 2024 and was required to continue the application procedure.

The insured person, a British national resident in Germany who draws a Swiss invalidity insurance (IV) pension, had filed his application by email. After submitting some documents in June 2024, he stated that he had received no further communications after 13 May 2024. The Common Institution HIA, for its part, had requested additional records by emails of 1 July and 13 September 2024 and by a preliminary notice (Vorbescheid) of 7 August 2024 sent by ordinary post; having received no response, it declined to consider the application. The Federal Administrative Court set that decision aside, and the Common Institution HIA appealed.

The Court first held the appeal admissible. The contested part of the judgment was a remittal decision and therefore an interlocutory decision under art. 93 of the Federal Supreme Court Act (FSCA), which is separately appealable only where it may cause irreparable harm. Such harm existed here, since the Common Institution HIA was obliged, contrary to its own assessment, to continue a procedure it regarded as unwarranted, without any means of challenging its own subsequent decision.

On the merits, the Court confirmed that no implied consent to electronic communication could be inferred either from the fact that the insured had filed his application by email (one of the two channels offered on the form) or from his having once replied by email. Given the recognised unreliability of email and the difficulty of proving that a message has reached the recipient's sphere of control, a strict receipt principle applies: the sender must request an acknowledgement of receipt and act if none is forthcoming, and, absent proof, an electronic message counts as undelivered, with the resulting evidentiary failure falling on the sender. The Court likewise confirmed that no natural presumption of proper delivery attaches to ordinary post, unlike qualified service such as A-Post Plus or registered mail, so that, the receipt of the preliminary notice being disputed and unproven, it could not be treated as served. As the Common Institution HIA could prove service of neither the emails nor the preliminary notice, no breach of the duty to cooperate under art. 13 of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) could be held against the insured, nor could any duty to enquire proactively be derived from that provision.

The Court accordingly dismissed the appeal and imposed the court costs of CHF 500 on the Common Institution HIA.

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