Better value to be found in health insurance
QA friend tells me I will be penalised on account of my age if I don’t buy health insurance soon. Is this true? If so, can you recommend a decent mid-range plan? (I will be 40 next month).
AThe health insurance market had been strictly regulated to avoid age discrimination. That will all change from May 1. From that date, all existing policyholders will be safe but anyone aged 35 or over will have to pay extra for cover. And they will carry that loading with them for the rest of their lives. So yes, do get insured before then.
The loading will be 2% for every year over 34 years of age. As you are 40, after May 1, if you don’t get cover before then, you would have to pay 2% x 6 years = 12% more for your cover compared to if you took it out before May 1.
For those who fail to get cover before the deadline, there will be credits for previous years of insurance cover.
The move is already benefiting existing policyholders. VHI and Laya have frozen rates and there have been only small increases from the others. Expect more deals as the May 1 deadline approaches.
As regards the best mid-level plans, I asked health insurance consultant Dermot Goode of totalhealthcover.ie for recommendations (see table).
These are all good mid-range plans. You can compare their features, and those of all plans, on the Totalhealthcover.ie site. A more comprehensive guide can be found on hia.ie. Dermot recommends that you should look for public and private hospital cover. But you can save a lot by restricting private cover to semi-private level (i.e. no more than five beds per ward.) Cover for the high-tech hospitals (Blackrock Clinic, Mater Private, Beacon) could prove vital for specific cardiac and day-case treatment so ensure you at least have that.
Also check out corporate plans highlighted in the table, which offer excellent value, according to Dermot. Despite the name, these are not restricted to company scheme members. They come in handy if you want everyday cover for routine medical expenses. And if you need to cut costs, take on a higher excess. This means you’ll pay more towards treatment in private hospitals but you’ll still have good cover.
Dermot warns of three classic pitfalls of health insurance:
1. Paying a lot extra for a private room that you don’t really need and may not even be available.
2. Putting the whole family on the same plan.
3. Failing to review your health cover every year.
QI am a public service worker and will be 65 next August. My contract states that I will retire at 65. But does my employer have to let me work until I am 66 if I choose?
AThe age set out in your contract of employment is usually the mandatory retirement at which you must retire. ‘New Entrants’ who joined the public service after April 2004 have a retirement age of 65 but it is not compulsory. For others, there is a compulsory retirement age of 65.
The Equality Act 2004 does prohibit discrimination on the grounds of age for everyone above 16. But employers are still allowed to set minimum recruitment ages of 18 or under and to set retirement ages in employment contracts.
Section 34 of the Employment Equality Act 1998 states: ‘It shall not constitute discrimination on the age ground to fix different ages for retirement (whether voluntary or compulsory) of employees.’