Portugal's 2027 Budget Gives INEM 331 Million Euros, Counting on Mandatory Home and Catastrophe Insurance That Does Not Exist Yet

The 2027 State Budget gives INEM (Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica, the national medical emergency service) almost 331 million euros, and much of the increase rests on money from a mandatory home insurance scheme that does not yet exist. The detailed budget tables put INEM's total budget at 330,991,160 euros, of which 301,019,334 euros is fee revenue: the levy INEM collects on insurance premiums.

Público reported on Friday, in a story also carried by ECO, that the Ministry of Health expects INEM's fee revenue to rise by 117.5 million euros in 2027, "sustained by the expectation" that compulsory insurance will be extended to homes and to catastrophe risks. According to ECO, the fee line grows from 195.5 million euros this year, and INEM's whole budget by about 30 percent. The government has not explained how it reached that estimate, and no date has been set for the insurance to begin.

What the budget documents say

The budget bill, Proposta de Lei n.º 110/XVII, contains no article creating catastrophe insurance or changing the levy. Its report says only that a "review of the insurance regime applicable to catastrophe and earthquake situations" is planned for 2027, as part of the PTRR (Portugal Transformação, Recuperação e Resiliência, the recovery plan launched after the storms earlier this year).

It does include a safety net. Item 106 of the transfers table in Annex I lets the ACSS (Administração Central do Sistema de Saúde, the health service's finance agency) pass up to 70 million euros to INEM "until INEM's own revenue covers" what it owes fire brigades and other emergency partners under its agreement with the Liga dos Bombeiros Portugueses (League of Portuguese Firefighters).

Why home insurance would matter to INEM

INEM's funding rule is in Decreto-Lei n.º 143/2026, the institute's new founding statute, published in July. Article 13 gives it 2.5 percent of premiums on life (death) cover, health, accident, vehicle and motor liability policies taken out on the mainland. Home and fire insurance are not on that list. ECO notes that the change in the law needed to make home policies pay the levy has not yet been defined.

The plan itself goes back to April, when the government announced that the PTRR would create a fund for natural and seismic catastrophes and a system of mandatory insurance for homes and business premises, with public help for lower-income households. The government has published no premium levels, no start date and no draft law.

What it means for you

Nothing changes yet. Today the only compulsory home cover is fire insurance for buildings under horizontal property (flats in a condominium), under Article 1429 of the Civil Code. The ASF (Autoridade de Supervisão de Seguros e Fundos de Pensões, the insurance supervisor) explains in its home insurance guide that this cover is for fire and related damage. Floods, storms and earthquakes are optional extras in a multi-risk policy. Público reports that about 45 percent of homes lack cover for climate events and only 19 percent are insured against earthquakes.

Parliament holds its first vote on the budget on 28 October. The timetable then sets detailed committee scrutiny from 29 October, with the final vote on 24 November. The budget is expected to pass its first vote. INEM's president, Luís Cabral, has said, according to Público and ECO, that the money is needed to pay more to the fire brigades that run part of INEM's emergency ambulance network. He has also argued for raising the levy to 4 percent.