During the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Swedish health insurance societies played a key role in protecting the working-class population from the economic risks associated with sickness, old age and death. This paper analyses the preventative health work of Swedish health insurance societies expressed in three journals published by health insurance societies during the period 1910-1950. Two of the journals are published by the two largest Swedish health insurance societies and the third published by the Swedish organization for health insurance societies.
Historically, many different types of insurance companies engaged in preventative work to, on a long term, reduce their own risk and increase profit. For example by financing conduits and sanatoriums and distribute life buoys for free. Hence, insurance companies’ preventative engagements, did not only work in their own interests but are yet another example on how businesses also influenced the actions and habits of individuals and the society as a whole.
When it comes to reduce risk in health insurance, the focus is to promote a healthier lifestyle, which was done in early twentieth century by informing members of health insurance societies on how to stay healthy. The preventative measures and advice on how to stay healthy became highly influenced by contemporary values and the eugenic view on health since racial biology became influential in Sweden the first half of the twentieth century. The eugenic view on health implied both that some groups in society by birth had genetically inferior genes and therefore should be restricted to procreate, but also that social factors like alcoholism and bad nutrition and housing might influence the quality of the genes negatively and that these destructed genes also were transferred to the next generation. Among all the Nordic countries, eugenics met its greatest success in Sweden both in terms of the early institutionalization of the movement, the establishment of the first state administered race biological institute in
1922, and the eugenic practice as it was manifest in sterilization policies between 1930 and 1960.
Preliminary results of this study show that health insurance societies argued the increase in reported morbidity (simultaneously as the mortality decreased) that took place in the early twentieth century, was due to a general degeneration of the
Swedish race. Swedes were turning more sickly and weak; the journals therefore informed how to stay genetically fit by e.g. avoid alcohol and attend to the personal hygiene. It was also recommended to move to the countryside since the industrial society destroyed the health and morals of the individual. Hence, besides dealing with risk by excluding the sick, old and other high risk-groups, preliminary results suggest that Swedish health insurance societies handled risk by excluding those that were regarded also as genetically inferior. Since the Swedish public health insurance of 1955, was built on the existing health insurance societies, it is important to investigate the role of health insurance societies and eugenics in defining and constructing the implication of “health” and “sickness” in early twentieth century health insurance.
Key words: health insurance, racial biology, eugenics, sickness