Beware of the terms of your group health insurance plans – one wrong move will leave you feeling sick
IT WILL be a surprise to many people to learn that you can lose your private health insurance group discount merely by changing your plan, even though you stay with the same private health insurer and you continue to make your payments through your existing group scheme.
Some people have been caught out, to their cost, when they changed their plan, as they found that the cost saving was more than offset by their insurance company refusing to allow them retain their existing group discount on their new plan. It is impossible for the public to know which plan changes result in the loss of the group discount and which changes do not.
At this time each year, many people are looking at ways to save money. The cost of health insurance is very important and most health insurance policies are renewed in the first few months of the year.
People understand that if you change insurance company, you need to be alert to the fact that the new provider may not offer a group discount. When people change employers, they also will be aware they need to check is there a group private health insurance scheme in place in their new employment.
There are approximately 300 inpatient health insurance policies on the Irish market and it is a very complex area. Some websites compare various policies but none of these gives any information in relation to group discounts.
Most people are familiar with the fact that you may get up to a 10pc group discount on your private health insurance when you join through your employer or some other group organisation when taking out private health insurance. However, none of the three major private health insurance companies in Ireland – VHI Healthcare, Laya Healthcare and Irish Life Health – provides information on group discounts on their websites. Neither the Health Insurance Authority nor the Central Bank, which is the regulator in the insurance market, obtains or collects any information on group discounts.
The 2016 Health Insurance Authority annual report confirms that there were 2,152,000 private health insurance policies in place. VHI had 1,119,000 (52pc), Laya had
581,000 (27pc) and Irish Life had
452,000 (21pc) of the market. The
There is a convenient policy of non-disclosure of key financial information that every consumer is entitled to ... This system is overseen by the Central Bank and the Health Insurance Authority
total private health insurance market in 2016 was €2.53bn. This gives an average price per policy of €1,176. The average group discount is worth €117 and for the more expensive plans it is much higher than that.
DURING 2017, I contacted each of the health insurance companies directly, asking about their group discounts. No information was forthcoming.
The Central Bank stated that it would not provide information on an individual company basis or on a consolidated industry basis
due to confidentiality obligations.
The Health Insurance Authority collects a substantial amount of commercially sensitive information from each of the companies, as the authority requires this to enable it to calculate the stamp duty levies on health insurance policies to pay for the risk equalisation credits. It publishes information in relation to the market share and number of policyholders in every age group, which is extremely commercially sensitive, but it does not collect information on group discounts.
All in all, there is a convenient policy of non-disclosure of key financial information that every consumer in the country is entitled to, before a financial decision is made. This system is overseen by the Central Bank and the Health Insurance Authority.
These two State bodies and the three major insurance companies all talk about consumer protection and make grandiose public statements on the matter.
However, when it comes to obtaining clear information to allow the public make informed choices, the message is very clear: you are on your own.