Important changes to health insurance market
The Health Insurance Authority is urging anyone who doesn’t have health insurance to consider taking it out now and avoid age-related loadings on health insurance premiums that will take effect after April 30th next.
Lifetime Community Rating is being introduced from May 1st to encourage people to take out health insurance before they reach age 35 years. This is an important measure to encourage younger people to take out health insurance at an earlier age. It will help to create a more balanced health insurance market, with long term benefits for all policy holders.
Anyone aged 35 or older taking out health insurance for the first time after April 30th will have a permanent age-related loading of 2% per year of age over 34 applied to their health insurance premium. For example, an individual aged 54 years taking out health insurance for the first time after April 30th will have a loading of 40% added to their premium each year; this loading will continue to apply for the duration that they remain insured.
Commenting, Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar said: “Over 2 million people have health insurance and this number is increasing again as incomes recover and competition in the health insurance market provides greater choice and better value. We need to get to a place where people really value their health insurance. In our community rated market, one of the ways health insurance can become more affordable is to increase the numbers of people taking out cover at a younger age, particularly in their 20s and 30s. Lifetime Community Rating is designed to encourage people to take out health insurance before they reach 35 years and not leave it too late. In this way it will help to keep down the cost of insurance for everyone as they get older.”
Detailed information on Lifetime Community Rating, including a lifetime community rating calculator, is available at www.hia.ie.