Risk-Free Is the Way to Be

Germany is the Wurst No. 32

Now that Carnival mania has died down for a bit in Germany, or at least until November, Germans can no longer be distracted from the fact that the country still has no ruling majority government. Chancellor-to-be Friedrich Flintstone Merz has assured everyone he will conclude coalition negotiations by Easter, which, as luck would have it, falls relatively late this year. And really, what is the rush? After living here for a decade, I’ve learned that you can count on Germans to move quickly on only a handful of occasions; for example, when they run to catch their public transportation connections, snatch up vacant seats in the sun at outdoor cafes, or push to the front of the line when a new cash register opens up at the grocery store. Moreover, for the first time since World War II, Germany can no longer rely on the financial and military backing of the United States. Now, more than ever, is a perfect opportunity for German politicians to take all the time they need to form a government coalition based on who they would rather not work together with, as well as quarrel about minute discrepancies on topics such as the federal deficit and immigration. If only Germans could learn to throw caution to the wind, much like the U.S., whose federal deficit increased by $318 billion since the last fiscal year. The limit does not exist!

Despite the daunting task of forming a government coalition and trying to win Alternative for Germany voters back from the Dark Side, Germany has in the meantime managed to select a song for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest. And, to top it off, the singers are not even from Germany, but from fellow DACH country Switzerland! Ok, wait a minute. As someone who only sporadically watches Eurovision and does not fully understand the rules, I was not aware contestants from one country could perform for another country. According to the Eurovision participation rules, each country is represented by its respective public broadcaster which has the sole discretion to decide who will participate for its country in Eurovision. This year, Germany is not taking any risks. Despite being part of the Big 5 and buying its way into the Grand Final each year, Germany has only won Eurovision twice. Could it be that Germany is trying to make itself more likeable to other Europeans by selecting a Swiss entry, when the winner last year was from Switzerland and therefore the contest will take place this year in Basel, Switzerland? It’s a pretty safe bet. Perhaps for his next project, Stefan Raab should cut a deal with the Bundestag and create a show about coalition negotiations, Chefsache 2025: Wer regiert für Deutschland?

Recent political discussions, Germans worrying that the U.S. has left them to fend for themselves, and, most importantly, outsourcing Eurovision to the Swiss, all confirm a hunch I’ve had for years: Germans are risikoavers. Sure, we can deduce that Germans are not big risk takers by what is happening in current events; however, the signs are everywhere in daily life. From (not) changing jobs to wearing bicycle helmets, Germans like to play it safe. The following are some examples in which I’ve noticed how Germans like to protect themselves from taking risks, and you can, too!

Wearing Helmets

Skiing and bicycling are two specific activities during which Germans almost always wear a helmet. Although I don’t usually wear a helmet when riding my bike, I would most definitely wear one if I ever decided to ski down steep slopes at high speeds. However, I was surprised to learn that it is not mandatory to wear a helmet when skiing in Germany. Ski helmets have only become popular within the last 15 years or so, after a high profile ski accident in which former German politician and Minister President of Thüringen Dieter Althaus collided with another skier on the slopes. Althaus survived the collision, most likely because he was wearing a helmet. Unfortunately, the person he collided with was not wearing a helmet and died due to accident related injuries on the way to the hospital. After the accident in 2009, demand for ski helmets skyrocketed, also known as the Althaus-Effekt, and the Deutsche Skiverband estimates that today about 93% of skiers voluntarily wear a helmet to protect their noggin.

On that note, let’s move on to a less threatening form of recreation. According to a 2023 study by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport, 39% of the German residential population between the ages of 14 and 69 use a bicycle or electric bike regularly, i.e., daily or several times a week, as a means of transportation and/or for leisure. I just so happen to belong to this group, although unlike 14% of respondents, I would never refer to myself as a “cyclist.” Huffing and puffing up the slightly gradient hills where I live with my two kids in the back of my bike trailer doesn’t exactly exude Lance Armstrong vibes. Anyways, also according to the study, 47% of respondents always (29%) or usually (18%) wear a helmet. Compared to a similar age group of people in the Netherlands, who bike almost 20 kilometers per week on average, only about 1% of bicyclists in Amsterdam, for example, wear a helmet. Are the Dutch simply bigger risk takers, or are they just not used to wearing helmets because it is impossible to downhill ski in the flat Netherlands? Actually, the Netherlands heavily invests in their bicycle infrastructure and as a result, it isn’t that big of a risk not to wear a helmet while cycling in Holland because the separate bike paths keep bicyclists safe from sharing the road with cars. For example, a few years ago here in Germany, someone driving down a one-way street yelled at me and accused me of riding my bike too slowly. It wasn’t safe for them to pass me because there wasn’t enough room on the street and there was no separate bike lane for me to cycle in. At least I was wearing my helmet.

Insurance

In another bicycle-related incident, when I first had a child seat installed on the back of my bike, my neighbor commented that it was a good choice not to attach the seat myself, because if anything were to happen, then it wouldn’t be my fault. Funnily enough, the thought had never crossed my mind. Since I know literally nothing about bikes, I thought it best to entrust installing a child seat to professionals who do that kind of stuff every day. However, my neighbor’s reasoning was not totally incorrect, and it is more or less the driving force behind Germans purchasing a variety of insurance plans. In Germany, it is best to have insurance, because even though life is risky, it doesn’t have to be expensive. The following are common types of insurance in Germany, almost all of which I personally have:

• Krankenversicherung (health insurance): Unlike in the U.S., all residents in Germany are required to have health insurance. This makes sense to me, because getting sick isn’t usually your fault, unless you have kids, then it’s their fault.

• Haftpflichtversicherung (liability insurance): Although getting sick may not be your fault, accidents are bound to happen. For example, heavy-ish items from the medicine cabinet could fall into the bathroom sink and crack the ceramic. Yes, this actually happened to me twice and my insurance wasn’t happy about it. About 83% of Germans have liability insurance.

• Hausratversicherung (household insurance): In the event that there is a fire in your home, or someone with questionable motives steals the seat off your bicycle (this happened to one of my neighbors), then household insurance is a handy to replace your lost or stolen items. Around 76% of Germans have this type of insurance.

• Kfz-Versicherung (car insurance): If you drive a car in Germany, it must be insured and you have two insurance options: Vollkasko and Teilkasko. If you have Vollkasko, you can drive around fast and furious because if you cause an accident, your insurance will pay for damages to your car and other cars. However, if you have Teilkasko, you better hope you never cause an accident yourself, because insurance will only pay for the damages to other cars.

• Berufsunfähigkeitsversicherung (disability insurance): If something happens and you are unable to work in your occupation or other jobs with similar training or education requirements, then disability insurance will help you. This type of insurance is less common; only around 26% of Germans have disability insurance.

• Lebensversicherung (life insurance): If you die, this insurance isn’t particularly helpful to you, but rather for the people who depend on you.

• Rechtsschutzversicherung (legal insurance): Around 46% of Germans have legal insurance. As the majority of Germans are renters, it is common to have this type of insurance in case of any disputes with your landlord.

Changing Jobs and Moving

Someone once told me that if you make friends with Germans, you make friends for life. As it turns out, not only do Germans like to hold on to their friendships for the long run, but also their jobs and their living situations. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, 41.7% of emplo­yees surveyed were employed with their current em­ployer for at least ten years. In Germany, stability can often be confused with satisfaction, which can also be mistaken for comfort. Wait, are we still talking about employment or orthopaedic shoes? Comparatively, only 26.2% of Americans have been at their jobs for more than ten years and the average American worker has been at their current job for just under four years. Moreover, Americans are more likely to change their jobs than their German counterparts and as a result, they move around a lot more. In fact, the United States is one of the most geographically mobile countries in the world, with Americans moving an average of eleven times in their lifetime. Germans, on the other hand, move an average of five times during their lifetime and have the lowest home ownership rate of any country in the EU at 42%. For example, when my husband and I were considering purchasing our own home, I quickly realized we both had very different approaches to home ownership: I viewed buying a house as something temporary with the understanding that we would eventually sell and buy another house, whereas to my husband, buying a house meant staying there forever, or basically purchasing his coffin. Alas, although we live in a house, we are part of the 58% of people living in Germany who rent.

Start-Up Culture

If Teddy Roosevelt once said, “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed,” then Otto von Bismarck most likely would have said, “Colonialism and start-ups are a waste of time and resources.” Only one of these quotes is actually true, take your best guess as to which one. Starting a new company is a huge risk with a 90% chance at failure, and herein lies the major difference in start-up culture in the United States and Germany. The United States national ethos of the American Dream and American exceptionalism sets great importance on self-responsibility and risk taking. This could also be one reason Americans have nowhere near as many insurance plans as the Germans. And, as noted when we talked about employment tenure in Germany, stability and security are more important values to Germans. Moreover, those willing to take the risk of starting a new business will eventually need some money. Overall, venture capital is more readily entrusted to young start-ups in the United States than in Germany, by the fact that the United States is an oligarchy with extreme wealth inequality. For example, according to estimates by EY, German-based companies took in around €7 billion in venture capital in 2024 and continue to see a steady increase in the number of start-ups being founded as well as corresponding cash flow. Comparatively, start-ups in the United States raised $180 billion in venture capital in 2024 with four large AI deals accounting for $26.6 billion in Q4 2024 alone. Welcome to the big leagues.

Risk-free is the way to be, wouldn’t you agree?