Almost 3,800 employees earn over $82,000 monthly: NHIS

[Photo by Yonhap]

There are nearly 3,800 high-income health insurance subscribers in South Korea who earn over 110 million won ($82,300) per month based solely on their salaries, according to data from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS).

Democratic Party Representative Choi Hye-young obtained and released the NHIS data on Monday regarding the status of salaried health insurance payees and their monthly premiums between 2019 and 2023. According to this data, the number of salaried employees who paid the maximum monthly health insurance premium of 7,822,560 won was 3,791 as of October 2023. When calculating salaries based on the premium payment, it is assumed that their monthly salaries exceed 110.33 million won. Their health insurance premiums are split in half and paid by both the subscribers and their companies.

The 3,791 salaried employees reportedly include company owners, executives, professional chief executive officers, or conglomerate heads. They tend to receive annual salaries ranging from billions to tens of billions of won, accounting for only 0.019 percent of the total 19,908,769 salaried employees as of October 2023.

The maximum monthly health insurance premium has increased to 8,481,420 won in 2024, up by 658,860 won from the previous year’s 7,822,560 won.