There was an excellent piece in the Irish Times today about the  rising cost of health insurance in Ireland. The piece contained a number of interesting facts about the Irish health insurance market, including the following:

•  The average cost of insuring a family of four in this country has increased to well over €2,000 per annum.

•  If you want to switch your cover to a more comprehensive plan with another insurer, you may have to wait up to two years for the enhanced benefits that your new plan offers to kick in (this is presumably while paying the higher rates - I’m sure that they allow you to do that immediately).

•  If you don’t have any children, Quinn’s Essential Plus plan at €854 per annum works out decidedly cheaper than VHI’s Plan B, which offers a similar level of cover for €906.99 per year. However, given that children are cheaper on the VHI’s option, a family of two adults and three children would actually save money by going with VHI.

• Another thing to be aware of is that policies advertised as ‘company’, ‘corporate’ or ‘business’ are often cheaper than conventional policies and, despite their names, are by law available to any customer. The details of such plans are often difficult to find on the insurers’ websites; however, full details are available on the Health Insurance Authority’s website.

•  This sounds a little callous, but it can make good financial sense to downgrade your children’s policies if every member of the family is on the same plan (this is due to the fact that all children’s hospitals in the country are public, and that most private hospitals don’t offer paediatric services, so it makes little sense to have your children covered for private hospital care). This simple change could save you €300 per year.

•  Downgrading to a cheaper policy will often leave you with little in terms of out-patient cover, so this may not be the cheaper option if out-patient services constitute your primary health expense.

SaveAFewBob recommend that, as well as reading the original article, readers should consult the HIA’s website, and find out if you’re currently availing of the best health insurance option for you.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 17th, 2010 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Health and Beauty, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.