Energy sector inflation leads to surge in consumer queries

While much-feared energy shortages didn’t materialise in 2022, prices sometimes rose. © Keystone / Christian Beutler

Switzerland’s official price watchdog handled 60% more consumer complaints last year compared with 2021, most of them due to prices in the energy sector.

Some 30% of the 2,368 queries received last year were related to energy, Stefan Meierhans said on Monday. Healthcare was the second most contested sector (13%), followed by telecommunications (5.5%).

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Due to the large numbers of complaints, Meierhans said he adjusted his priorities at the beginning of 2022 to focus on heating, energy and fuel. He also called on gas supply companies to use reserves from previous years to dampen price increases.

“Fortunately, these recommendations were listened to in several cases,” he said.

The price watchdog also said he paid increased attention last year to public sector fees and to companies in a monopoly position, or with significant market power. He recommended that they always look for potential ways to relieve consumer costs, as well as to check if it was possible to turn to their financial reserves to do so.

Lab costs

In the healthcare sector, Meierhans also found that in 2020 the Swiss fees for laboratory analyses in medical practices were on average 4.5 times higher than in other European countries. In hospital and private laboratories the average cost was 2.3 times higher. Working to lower these prices could result in potential savings for health insurers of over CHF1 billion ($1.06 billion), said Meierhans.

He recommended that future charges for medical analyses be based on price comparisons abroad. A decision last August by the Interior Ministry to reduce the fees for laboratory analyses by 10% was a “first step in the right direction”.