What is DGUV?
The DGUV defines itself in its own institutional documentation as the Spitzenverband, the highest-level federation, of the institutions that comprise the statutory accident insurance system in Germany. Legally, it is a private association, a registered association, and not a public body or a state agency.
It was established on June 1, 2007, through the merger of two pre-existing federations: the Hauptverband der gewerblichen Berufsgenossenschaften (HVBG), which grouped together private sector mutual insurance companies, and the Bundesverband der Unfallkassen (BUK), which grouped together public sector insurers. This merger unified the two major blocs of German workers’ compensation insurance into a single representative structure.
The DGUV’s members are of two types. Berufsgenossenschaften are sectoral mutual insurance companies that cover private companies, organized by industry. Unfallkassen are public sector insurers, linked to federal, regional, and local governments, as well as certain public services. Unlike the DGUV itself, both Berufsgenossenschaften and Unfallkassen are public law corporations and are managed on an equal footing by representatives of employers and employees.
The DGUV’s main headquarters are in Berlin, and it maintains a second headquarters in Sankt Augustin, near Bonn.
Purpose and scope of action
The statutory accident insurance provided by the DGUV is funded exclusively by employer contributions. Unlike other branches of German social security, there are no employee contributions to this specific insurance.
The DGUV itself summarizes its mission in three functions: prevention, rehabilitation and compensation, understood as a continuum that begins before the accident occurs and ends, when necessary, in compensation or pension.
Functions and main lines of work
The activity of the DGUV and its member entities is organized around four lines.
- Prevention. The DGUV develops and publishes its own technical regulations, the DGUV Vorschriften (binding regulations) and the DGUV Regeln (technical reference rules), which develop the safety and health requirements applicable to companies affiliated with its member entities, sector by sector.
- Rehabilitation. It coordinates and finances, through its members, medical care, functional recovery and the labor and social reintegration of people who suffer a work accident or an occupational disease.
- Compensation. It establishes the common framework for compensation and pensions due to victims of recognized work accidents and occupational diseases.
- Institutional representation. The DGUV represents accident insurance institutions before the legislative branch, federal, regional, European and international administrations, and employers’ and workers’ organizations.
The insurance covers, in addition to employees, other groups defined by German law, including schoolchildren and students, through the Schüler-Unfallversicherung, the school accident insurance that is part of the same system.
Contribution to safety and health at work
The German model represented by the DGUV and the Spanish model of mutual insurance companies collaborating with Social Security share the same underlying idea, the management of occupational contingencies by entities other than the State, but they differ in several structural points that should not be confused.
In Spain, mutual insurance companies are private, non-profit associations that operate on behalf of the Social Security system, under the supervision and control of the relevant Ministry, and cover both temporary incapacity due to common contingencies, if the company has opted for it, and occupational contingencies. In Germany, on the other hand, the Berufsgenossenschaften and Unfallkassen are public law corporations that exclusively manage occupational contingencies, with equal self-governance between employers and employees, and the DGUV is the federation that groups them and provides common technical regulations, not a supervisory authority comparable to that exercised by the Spanish administration over mutual insurance companies.
The distinctive contribution of the German model, and the reason why the DGUV is of interest to any prevention professional outside of Germany, is the existence of its own technical regulatory body, the DGUV Vorschriften and DGUV Regeln, which it develops with a level of sectoral detail that does not always have a direct equivalent in other countries, and which serves as a technical reference for companies with a presence in Germany or with German parent companies, subsidiaries or suppliers.
Relationship with the ORP International Foundation
The DGUV brings to the ORP International Foundation’s institutional advisory committee the perspective of a mandatory social insurance system: it is the umbrella federation for German statutory workers’ compensation insurance, formed in 2007 through the merger of organizations representing mutual insurance companies in the private and public sectors in Germany. Its presence introduces the German model of public insurance for occupational risks to the committee.
Practical application
For a prevention professional who works with German suppliers, subsidiaries or clients, knowing about the existence of the DGUV Vorschriften and DGUV Regeln is relevant because this technical regulation may be contractually required or serve as a reference for good practices, even when the activity takes place outside of Germany.
For those comparing occupational contingency insurance systems, the DGUV is a useful example of a sector-based, joint self-management model, distinct from both the purely state-run model and the Spanish model of collaborating mutuals.
