Live95 Limerick Today Podcasts
How to save money on your health insurance
Dermot Goode from Totalhealthcover.ie joins Joe to discuss how people can get the best health insurance for the best price.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Broadcast on:
- 17 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
your views your news your limerick today with Joe net online 95 as many of you know Dermot good of total health cover dot ie is one of the foremost experts when it comes to private health insurance in the country and good morning to you again Dermot good morning Joe so with the price increases that we're seeing and you know it's been a consistent theme over the last few years do families now have to seriously consider whether private health insurance is actually worth it no it's a really good question i i think i think people still really want to keep their health insurance in place because they know that despite some of the improvements in the public system it's still very challenging there to try and get access to certain treatments quickly and so on but i think people will will really be challenged over the coming months now Joe to definitely keep the same level of cover in place so there's already you know thousands of people who are probably barely managing to afford this particularly younger people and and now when they hear and they see these increases of anything from 10 to 24 percent and i think a lot of them they may have no option but to discontinue their cover because they've already exhausted all the the you know the options to reduce the tactics to reduce the cost so this is what we saw back between 10 2011 and 2015 when rates started spiraling we saw i think nearly 300,000 young people had no option were to leave the system now we hope that doesn't happen again but there is a real risk the rates keep going the way they are that young people and families may have to make some very difficult decisions and Joe that could be reducing the cover down to a minimum you know and i have to say some of those really basic plans you'd have to question the value for money they've been having them because the cover is so limited or they may have to take on more risk and which means if they end up in hospital they could have higher shortfalls and i know already some families are talking about maybe taking some younger dependents off the policy so the mama dad may need to keep the cover in place and that means sacrifices may have to be made in terms of maybe deleting some of the the younger dependents just so that they can stay in the system so it is going to be a really difficult six months as we come into the peak renewal period now if there is a potential maybe for some light at the end of the tunnel here i see lea have an offer in the market from the first of september for families where if you have two or more children under 18 you pay for the first child and then the rest of the children under 18 are free and that plan that's free is called essential connect health but Joe here's the thing you may not be offered that by the insurance company so it's really important that you pick up the phone and ask about that offer and i see v hi from october despite all the increases they are bringing in a 25 discount for children on the regime on a range of plans so there may be some relief there for families that they might not have to pay you know this 15 or 20 percent increases and also we do have another player coming into the market now the details are not clear at presence it looks like they will definitely come in before the end of the year and any new entrance Joe that comes into the market you know to get that critical mass quickly they have to be very competitive both on benefits and pricing and if they come in with a really aggressive pricing strategy the other insurance companies will have to respond otherwise they will lose membership so there may be a glimmer of hope there but at the moment there's not there's not much by way of good news for health insurance consumers and the system means that if you don't stay with it as a younger person you will end up paying more under community rating if you join above the ages of 35 yes exactly so here's what happens if so if you're if you're less to say 34 years of age now and you're thinking of joining if you join before you turn 35 you will pay that the base race but if you leave a goal to your 35 36 and so on you pay an extra 2 percent for every year over 34 and that's the the loading system that was brought in in 2015 to incentivize people to join at a younger age the big issue Joe for me if somebody has to cancel so if I cancel my cover and I rejoin in two years time I will get credit for my previous membership so I may not have to pay any loadings but the issue is if during that time I've developed a medical condition or if I already had a medical condition whatever it might be and I rejoin I will not be covered in hospital for five years that's the real catch so I would urge anybody who's really struggling with these costs to look at every every option to reduce your cost first of all and and Joe before I even go down that road of what tactics you can employ I can tell you right now if you're listeners anybody who's on the same plan for five years or more anybody who's paying 2000 euro or more per adult anybody who's paying the full adult cost for their adult dependence so if you've an 18 19 20 year old and you're paying the full adult cost or anybody who's never looked at a corporate plan or doesn't have a small excess on their policy or maybe hasn't split their cover where you'd have everybody on different plans those people and there are thousands in that group you're already overpaying hugely for your cover so you already could make huge savings for and sometimes better cover just by shopping around properly now for those people who maybe do shop around each year you know it's going to be more difficult for them but there are tactics they can drop their accommodation cover they can go for a restricted hospital plan where you're not covered for every hospital they can take on a higher excess you can get rid of your day to day cover you can get rid of your high-tech cardiac cover there's lots of things Joe lots of steps that a good advisor will do to see right where can we chip away at little bits of these costs but still keep you insured and we're talking to Darmit Good from Total Health cover data you know as you can check out his website for more on this now we are seeing a private hospital in Limerick being completed at the moment expected to be up and running in the middle part of next year how close are we do you think or is it still so far off that it's not even worth discussing to a separation between private health and public health that might actually help those ultimately who find themselves not able to afford private health cover no it's a really good question so right now if we look at slaughter care the main objective one of the objectives of slaughter care is to make sure that public hospitals are only for public patients in other words private patients can't get access more quickly and get treated more quickly just because they have private health insurance and they are they are making steps towards that but they're not quite there yet and until to be honest Joe until they have proper private maternity services and private pediatric services in the private system i i think that you know that that end goal is still a long way is still a long ways off i mean i think the way i've overseen that the health care system in Ireland there is a huge interdependency between the public and private system and so half the population have private health cover the other half for whatever reason will still rely on the public system and we even saw true covid when the public system came under a huge pressure they relied heavily on the private system to take that slack and even now today to the national treatment purchase fund we see government continuously buying beds effectively in the private system to treat people who are on those waiting lists over a certain period of time i don't know will we ever see a day where there's a complete division and private patients only go to private hospitals and public patients go and can only be treated in the public hospitals because that interdependency i think will always be there but look you know slonticare as we all know that it's a 10-year program i think they are way behind on their objectives and obviously covid didn't help i i think one of the good things about our private health care system is the community rating aspect of it so unlike other jurisdictions like in the uk where you're penalized as you get older you pay more as you get older and you pay more as you claim more just like car insurance so one of the good things with the private system here is that there are no penalties for claiming there are no bonuses for not claiming so people when they get into their 50s 60s 70s and 80s and even with these increases you know health care private health care is still relatively affordable and and even as i say that job there are people who cannot even afford the 500 euro per product for the basic policies and are priced out of private health care because of the age loadings but i think seeing both systems being being carved divided up like that i think that's still a long ways off all right well listen thank you very much for your advice as always darmit good from total health cover data e talking about private health insurance which undoubtedly is an increasing concern for many of you listening your views your news your limerick today with jones online 95