Insurance for newborn

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Pablop

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Hi I am currently on health plan 16.1 from Irish Life, planning to change at the end of policy to Simply Connect (end of September) I just had a baby, shoul I add it to my current plan or is it possible to insure my baby with Laya while I am still on Irish Life?
Another question I have my wife 37 never had insurance in Ireland what would be best plan for her that is not expensive and covers at least all public hospitals, but private high tech would be good addition even if have excess.
 
Congrats on the new baby. I could be wrong but think you can add new borns to most plans for free until the end of the current plan's term, and then either renew or switch plans for both you and baby together.
 
For what it's worth, my limited experience in children's hospitals is that they don't face the same issues as their adult counterparts.

I would question whether health insurance is necessary for children at all.

Myself and my wife have entry level health policies. Neither of our children have any. Luckily we haven't needed to visit too many consultants but when we have, we've weighed up the estimated wait time in the public health system against paying the consultants fees directly ourselves with savings.
 
That's fine for emergency type care, public care is as good as private. Risk is for non emergency things, yes you can pay the consultant but that won't get you any further up the public system if something needs doing, tonsils or adenoids are a classic one. You will wait a long time on the public system for these to be done and if your kid is not sleeping because of these sorts of issues or has constant ear problems it will feel like an even longer time!

I think I would actually even forgo insurance for myself in favour of children as the children's policies are so cheap anyway in comparison if money was an issue.
 
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Monbretia said:
That's fine for emergency type care, public care is as good as private. Risk is for non emergency things, yes you can pay the consultant but that won't get you any further up the public system if something needs doing, tonsils or adenoids are a classic one. You will wait a long time on the public system for these to be done and if your kid is not sleeping because of these sorts of issues or has constant ear problems it will feel like an even longer time!

I think I would actually even forgo insurance for myself in favour of children as the children's policies are so cheap anyway in comparison if money was an issue.
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Maybe I don't understand the system properly but I had assumed that you could go on the private queue for treatment if you pay the appropriate private fee, no?
 
Well yes you can, I thought you meant by paying the consultants fees that you meant just the consultant and not the hospital fees etc for any procedure needed but to go public route when/if diagnosed.

If you have that sort of money to be able to look after the cost of a hospital stay/tests/procedures then you're fine and you'd don't really need health insurance. They are not cheap though and it's taking a risk on whether or not you ever have to pay and sure isn't that the very essence of insurance, do you take the gamble or not, if you never have to pay out for something you win and if you do then you lose, all insurance is to mitigate the risk of something which may never happen happening.
 
Coldwarrior said:
Congrats on the new baby. I could be wrong but think you can add new borns to most plans for free until the end of the current plan's term, and then either renew or switch plans for both you and baby together.
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Thats ill probably do in the meantime. I see VHI offers as well some disvounts for children plans, irish life too. Btw while ill be switching I simply give notice that aim finished with them and sign up to new insurer? Do they ask you while signing up about history of previous insurance? I habe been too long with one insurer i started while it was still called aviva wuth level 2 hospital plan but in the space of few years the cost just quadrupled so had to switch plans, it looks at the moment from corporate plans Laya seems to have best deals
 
Yes they will ask you about previous insurers but they don't look for proof until you need a procedure! So keep some evidence of your previous cover. I had the devil and all of a time for a child procedure where I had switched insurers 3 times over the 4 yrs of the child's life and was lucky enough to be able to find some paperwork myself as the info did not transfer over when some company took over another one. Can't even remember which ones it was but there was some takeovers and merges and I got caught in the middle with messy record transfers on their side!
 
Monbretia said:
Well yes you can, I thought you meant by paying the consultants fees that you meant just the consultant and not the hospital fees etc for any procedure needed but to go public route when/if diagnosed.

If you have that sort of money to be able to look after the cost of a hospital stay/tests/procedures then you're fine and you'd don't really need health insurance. They are not cheap though and it's taking a risk on whether or not you ever have to pay and sure isn't that the very essence of insurance, do you take the gamble or not, if you never have to pay out for something you win and if you do then you lose, all insurance is to mitigate the risk of something which may never happen happening.
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Good points
 
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