Croatian Health Insurance Fund
health insurance fund
The Croatian Health Insurance Fund (Croatian: Hrvatski zavod za zdravstveno osiguranje or HZZO) is a state-owned enterprise that administers the universal health care system in Croatia. Established in 1993 by the Government of Croatia, the HZZO is the country's national social health insurance fund and its primary source of health financing. In 2019, 4.18 million people received health insurance coverage through HZZO.
Organization
The HZZO is overseen by a director and a board of directors, appointed by the Croatian government on the recommendation of the Minister of Health. These directors represent the insured population, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance and independent general practitioners. A central office located in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, sets policies that are implemented by branch offices in each of the country's 21 counties.
All health care providers that receive public funds are required to negotiate annual contracts with the HZZO that set prices and payment plans.
Funding
Compulsory health insurance contributions form 76% of the fund's income. About a third of the population - those in employment - are liable to pay full contributions.
History
The Constitution of Croatia, adopted in December 1990, declared that health care is a human right.
In 1993, the HZZO was created by the Croatian Parliament in order to consolidate the fragmented and decentralized health care system which had been inherited from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Croatian Health Insurance Fund” is health insurance fund. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Croatian, Health and Insurance, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16113744. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993, 2019 and 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “Croatian Health Insurance Fund” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.