Why the health insurance market is continuing to grow
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Hmm, guess it's time to ask about Rupapa.

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Now a total of 2.52 million people, about 46% of the population, have had

health insurance, despite the cost of same going up by about 12% over the last year. Dermot Good of TotalHealthCover.ie is with me now. Dermot, it seems as though health insurance is as popular as ever. Yeah, we were surprised that it's now up to 2.52 million. But what does look like is happening is the rate of growth has definitely slowed down, which is not surprising. And when you see rates increasing by 15 to 20%,

you know, we can only expect that those people who are considering joining a lot, a lot more people, particularly younger people, will probably sit on the fence. But look, you know, if I was a health insurer, like this report, it's good news that the market still looks like it is growing, notwithstanding those increasing rates. But we're expecting, you know, we're expecting significant changes over the next 12 months when these increases start to bite home. Because, you know, from April onwards, March onwards of this year, and bear in mind,

The increases, the big increases we saw from the 1st of January and through March and now through April, they won't impact the peak renewal until we get to November, December again this year. So, and people need to be bracing themselves for 15 to 20% of increases. And I think it's a really difficult one for consumers because

Right now, you know, the only other alternative is to rely on that public system. And despite the best efforts of people working there, that system is significantly challenged. And it looks like, you know, whilst there are some

some signs of improvement. But like when you have, depending on where you look, 700 to 900,000 people on various waiting lists, that's why most people still are hanging on to their private cover. So I'm a cautionary tale, Dermot, because despite the fact that you give sage advice every time you're here, you say to me, contact me when your health insurance is up for renewal. Mine renewed relatively recently. I'm kind of outside that window when most people do it.

And I ignored the email. You know, it's just going to auto-renew. And I just said, I'll get back to that and I must talk to Dermot about that and see what I should do. And my God, it was a healthy increase in premium. I won't ask which insurer you're with, but Ciarán, here's the thing. If you are, VHI are the only ones where you can't change your cover after the renewal. But if you happen to be one of the other insurance companies, and for any of your listeners now who maybe missed that opportunity to review their cover,

However, the Irish Life Health, Leia Healthcare will allow you to amend your cover mid-year. You know, like for example, there are thousands of people who have children insured with Leia Healthcare right now. They renewed last November, December. There may have been no free cover for child dependents. On the 1st of April, Leia launched a free cover offer. So you could put your second, third and fourth child on a plan called Flex 125 Choice. Brilliant plan and it's completely free. And you don't have to wait until...

The expiry date, that 12-month expiry date? With those, with Léa and with Irish Life, you can amend your cover mid-year. So all those Léa members who missed that or didn't, they can phone them up today and say, move my second, third and fourth, you pay for the eldest child.

move them over to that plan, obviously check out its suitability. So even though you may have missed the renewal date, in some cases you can still review their cover. So you can still phone me, Ciarán, that offer is always there. Yeah, okay. I won't say who I'm with, but I'll be phoning Dermot after this and say no more. I've ruled out one of them. Anyway,

Do you see any other trends in the figures and the data released today by the Health Insurance Authority in terms of, you mentioned children there, for example, children who are on plans. Are people still putting their kids on plans at the same rate they were? Yeah, I mean, I would say there's no real surprises in the report, but there is some really interesting statistics that people should take note of. So one is there are less children being insured.

I think it's down from 23% to 21%. Once again, not surprising because it's now, there is no charge when your child is admitted to a public hospital. And I think a lot of people, the affordability issue is biting home. So, you know, in terms of risk management, you maybe take off the young, healthy children. But, you know, and I'm not surprised at that trend, but once again, people need to be careful. If you take your child off the policy and they have an existing condition, when you put them back on, that condition will not be covered for five years.

And the last time I looked at the data, and there is very good data on the waiting list, roughly 8% of the people on waiting lists are young children. So I would encourage anybody who's struggling with the cost and maybe look at splitting the cover, put the children on very low cover compared to the adults. But get advice before you remove them

from the policy completely because you could be in for a shock when you go to maybe reinsure them. I mean, other interesting things, the average premium is now up at €1,740. Once again, not a surprise, but that's up nearly €300 on the 2023 figure. So it's a 20% increase. So, and it's only going one way. I mean, please God, in two years time, if we're still discussing this, Ciarán, that figure could be close to €2,000.

You know, so, but right now there's good plans in the market for about €1,500 and even below that. So the best advice to any consumer who is, you know, baffled by the costs and really worried about, you know, the next renewal and affording that is,

you need to decide what your budget is. So once you know exactly, forget about what the rates are, what can I afford? And when you phone up the insurance companies to interrogate them, you know, or get them to recommend something, tell them that budget. And it keeps going up. I mean, it's just a consequence. And I know we've talked about this before. It's a consequence of people living longer, an ageing population and more innovative people

healthcare solutions to the problems we face, isn't it? I mean, this is the consequence of something that's good. It is. And look, you know, one of the other positives is more and more people are really using their cover. So you and I have spoken loads of times about these corporate plans and you get 50 to 75% back on your GP and consultant's fees. And by the way, anybody can join any corporate plan. So don't be put off by these names. But now what the insurance companies are telling us, well, too many people are claiming.

and the claims aren't what we budgeted for. But I suppose what's, people seem to have a much better understanding of their cover and people realise now there's no penalties for claiming, but there's no bonuses for not claiming. So in other words, you claim every cent.

So people are getting better at that. I mean, just to go back to your core question about the rates, medical inflation runs at about, depending on who you speak to, up to maybe 8%. Okay, yeah. And that covers the ageing population, new technologies, new drugs, you know, more hospital access, more people going into, and that's one of the things from the report, more people going into private hospitals.

You know, but the interesting thing from the claims data is that it looks like claims only increased last year by 6%. Maybe it was 15% the previous year. So I suppose a question I'm going to have for the insurance companies now is, well, you know, how come rates are still going up by 15% to 20% when it looks like last year the overall claims impact was lower?

Now, they will argue that, well, we're projecting out for the next two years. But, you know, if you look at purely at the core data, you should be nearly seeing lower increases coming through. So there's some really interesting stuff in this. The other thing I would say, and this is in previous reports as well, and it's an alarm bell going off for anybody maybe who's in their 60s.

The report states that they are the people paying about 44% over that average. Now, I would argue in some cases it's 100% over the average, depending on the age of the person. So I would say to everybody now who's over 60, when your next renewal comes true, the biggest mistake you can make is to auto-renew. And that just means you do nothing. You know, get your sons, daughters...

trusted friends, there's loads of brokers in the market but like if you're one of those people, if you're paying over two and a half, three thousand euro per adult for your cover, there has to be a very clear reason for that and often Ciarán, that reason is pure inertia or fear, you know, of switching or whatever and people, I'd love the HIA, the Health Insurance Authority to do much more

about educating people about the protections that are built into the legislation because people believe they will have a break in cover, they won't be covered for existing conditions. None of that applies. None of that. And by the way, 50% of all people who switch stay with the same insurance company. So you don't even necessarily have to change insurer. Yeah, you're just going to a different plan with the same company. Exactly. Do you see, and I'm not sure if the data is collected in a way that makes this obvious or evident, but

where there are scandals involving the HSE or the public system, does that have a knock-on effect on premiums? Do you see that in people's behaviour? It's a very good question. I suppose the way I would answer that is what we're seeing now is, and you could argue, is that because of all the publicity we're on waiting lists and difficulty accessing routine treatments in the public system, maybe some of the well-publicised scandals and so on, but there's clear evidence that people are now, with insurance, going to the private hospitals over the public hospitals.

Now, obviously, slanted care, you know, one of the aspirations of that report is to stop people using their health insurance going into public hospitals. But we're seeing, I think, the claims are well up for private hospitals. The claims are now down for the second year in a row for public hospitals.

And that you can argue is people using their cover. But obviously the insurance companies are telling us that whatever they budgeted for, that obviously the figure that they're now seeing in terms of actual claims is higher. They're also stating which you can't knock, you have to welcome this. The private hospitals seem to be much more efficient, turning people around more quickly.

So, as somebody told me recently, I mean, the average stay for a hip replacement used to be five days. Now it's two and a half days. Yeah. So that means they're doing two hip replacements now in the same timeframe as they were doing one. So obviously that's increasing the cost for the insurers. But like, you know, I can get an MRI and I've had MRIs done at quarter to 11 at night in private hospitals. Yeah. So, you know, look, I want quick access. I'm prepared to pay for that.

But it looks like the insurance companies maybe didn't gauge that properly and that's why we're paying higher premiums. But there definitely is a move towards the private hospital system for people with insurance. Because look, if I have private insurance and I'm going in, I want to choose my doctor, my consultant. I want to choose my accommodation. I want to choose when I go in.

And I can only do that by going into the private hospitals. So if I go into a public hospital with the best health insurance, I'm going to be in a multi-occupancy ward, which is a very fancy name for a public ward. Yeah. Well, listen, the advice is always is to shop around and to take the advice of people like Dermot and others. And he mentioned brokers around the country who steer you in the right direction. And even if you have renewed, certain providers will allow you to change that policy mid-year. Dermot?

As always, thanks a million for coming in to us. Dermot Good, TotalHealthGover.ie, part of the Lockdown Group.