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Updated 10.05am
HEALTH INSURER VHI has said that it is set to lower the price on 26 of its 78 plans.
It also said that it was adding extra benefits to a number of plans including cancer care benefits, maternity enhancements and a new STI screening benefit.
There are price reductions in young adult rates, child rates and adult rates across a number of plans. VHI said that “affordability remains a key issue for customers”.
For young adult plans – for 18-20 year olds – the price across most plans has reduced by an average of 7%.
The average reduction on child rates is 12%.
The reductions in adult rates are more modest, ranging from 1% to 5% in the HealthPlus suite.
These adult plans, formerly called B, C, B Excess and B Option, will fall by 1% while the old plans E and D will see a price reduction of 5%.
The majority of these changes will take effect from 1 November.
The state-owned company said that it had also made a significant change in primary care benefits, through enhanced day-to-day cover and through the reduction of outpatient excess levels.
Dermot Goode, from totalhealthcover.ie, called it a “welcome and surprising development which bucks the usual trend of price increases in the run up to the peak renewal period”.
He said: “While it’s too soon to tell what affect this will have on the market overall, it will be interesting to monitor the reaction from the competition.
Some of the discounts are very small (in the region of €30 per adult) but given that most consumers would be bracing themselves for increases, this is a positive development
Declan Moran, director of business and marketing at VHI, said that the company was re-investing in its customers to “deliver more value”.
Last year, the company raised prices on a number of plans by an average of 3%.
At the time, Moran said that the main reason for that increase was “the rising cost of claims and in particular the rising cost of claims in public hospitals”.
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Bit late now insisted on hiking mine last month for the 5th time. Good riddance to them.
If only all the money spend on “health insurance” could be used for health itself via a better contributed by all tax levy. Huge operational costs and shareholders profit to drive an accounting system essentially- a la Irish Water.
At last, a move in the right direction.
No sign of universal healthcare coming anytime soon
Ive often wondered about the cost of running the VHI, I assume defined benefit pensions for all…
@just readin: why not ask ? You got a mouth on you, or just ask questions of your keyboard !….#freedomofinformation !
this is hardly news shame on you journal shilling for private insurers and doing no reports on public hospitals take about MSM sellout
@Matthew O’Kane:
People with private health insurance account for about 45% of the population, VHI is by far the biggest player in that market so I would say lots of people will be interested.
The lead article at the moment is about Catalan independence, which do you believe will affect most people in this country?
Health plus plans are out of date by 5 years. Plan B options was €1200 5 years ago and is €2600 today. 100% guaranteed savings by switching to corporate plans covering the same thing.
About time they done something, the policies have been getting dearer and cover getting thinner.
If the company wasn’t paying I’d never pay ANY healthcare insurance. I really fail to see any benefit to it in Ireland.
@Davor Niksic:
I take it you don’t know anyone on a waiting list then.
@P.J. Nolan: Yes I do and it’s ridiculous. On top of that I find medical staff here alarmingly inadequate. Personally I do all family medical checkups in Croatia, even though I’m paying private it’s still cheaper and I’m getting infinitely better medical care. For a family of 4 you’re looking at flocking over 3k for healthcare insurance every year – all of us can fly out and get proper care twice a year for that money. There’s even a name for it – medical tourism.
have your say