WHO OFFERS THE BEST DEAL FOR CHILDREN’S HEALTH COVER?

QThere seems to be a lot of cut-price deals for children from health insurers right now. What’s the catch? And who offers the best deal?

AAll major health insurers are wooing parents with special offers for kids in January and February. They are not doing this entirely out of the goodness of their hearts. They want to attract younger customers who won’t make as many claims as older ones.

Let’s have a look at what’s on offer:

Laya Healthcare has reintroduced its ‘Free Kids Offer’ where parents pay only for one child’s health insurance and the rest go free on Essential Connect Family and Essential Health 300 schemes. The offer applies no matter how many children you have and runs until March 31.

VHI has a half price deal for January and February on 14 One plans plus their Teachers Plan Select and Nurses Plan Select Schemes.

Irish Life Health continues its discounted child rate on its Nurture Plan to €179 per child and its Select Plus scheme to €180 per child.

Firstly, Irish Life’s deal will not save you hundreds. Its discount is a nice gesture, but the cost will still be around €180 per child, whereas the VHI and Laya offers can cut your costs in half or more.

The full cost of a child on VHI’s One Plan, which is included in its half-price offer, is only €153.89 anyway.

Laya’s deal offers the most savings of the three if you have more than two kids. If you have four, three go free, which is very good value.

But the Laya offer only applies to two plans, while the VHI’s covers 16 plans. So there’s more choice there.

You have to be careful with special offers from health insurers. Ask are the plans they are steering you into worth taking a punt on.

Your relationship with any insurer is that money goes from you to it or from it to you. The more money goes your way, the less money the insurer makes. So it seems logical that they might steer you into plans that make them more money – not you.

This is borne out by the type of plans with special offers for kids. ‘These plans aren’t the best plans in the market but for those looking for reasonable hospital cover for their kids, they’re all good value,’ said consultant Dermot Goode of Totalhealthcover.ie.

Where they all fall down is on routine medical expenses. They have higher excesses and less cover than you might get with the best plans.

But you can also beat the insurers at their own game by splitting cover, putting your children on the plans with the best deals for them and the adults on those with good cover for outpatient care that they are more likely to use.

Children under six are entitled to free GP visits anyway and children generally don’t need physio, optical and dental care as much as adults. If they do, you’ll have to take it on the chin and pay the excess or the full cost.

You can save thousands, not hundreds, by having adults on the best corporate plans. These include Laya’s Simply Connect, Irish Life’s Bfit1 and the VHI’s Company Plan Plus level 1.3.

QCan you explain how age-loading on health insurance works? I’m 33 and have been told I should get cover now.

AYou should. If you don’t have qualifying health insurance by 30 April 2015, a loading will be applied.

It amounts to 2% per year for every year over 35 and it keeps going up to a maximum of 70% at age 69 or older.

Even for a relatively cheap plan costing €500, the loading would work out at €132 for a 48-year-old, for example, and it keeps going up.

So yes, you should get some form of cover now. Check out the website healthinsuranceauthority.ie to compare plans.