# What to do if you can't afford to renew your health insurance



## Brendan Burgess (30 Jan 2014)

One of the problems with cancelling health insurance is that when your circumstances improve and you can afford it again, you have to serve your waiting times again. 

For example, if you are under 55, there is a 5 year waiting period for pre-existing conditions. 

If you are over 65, the waiting period is 10 years for pre existing conditions, and 2 years for illnesses developed after you join. 

*You should cut your cover to the minimum possible cover instead of cancelling it*


If you develop a serious long term illness during the period of reduced cover, you will be covered at the lower level. 

But more importantly, you will be able to increase your cover again to a higher level, and the waiting time will be only 2 years if you are under 65 and 5 years if you are over 65. 

If you cancel completely, the waiting period will be at least 5 years.

I was told this on the phone by Laya and it's backed up by this bit of the VHI website. I presume that waiting periods are standard. 

Are there waiting periods before I can claim?

*If you are thinking of upgrading, do it before your 65th birthday!
*On your 65th birthday, the waiting period for upgrades increases from 2 years to 5 years.


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## PolkaDot (30 Jan 2014)

Brendan Burgess said:


> But more importantly, you will be able to increase your cover again to a higher level, and the waiting time will be only 2 years.



Is that true if you move from a basic policy with only public hospital cover up to a policy with private hospital cover? Is it the same for all health insurance companies?


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## Brendan Burgess (30 Jan 2014)

That is my understanding of it anyway.

I have moved the other topic to a separate thread: 

Young healthy people should take out only very basic cover


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Jan 2014)

Cornmarket suggests that the [broken link removed]

*New waiting period for policy upgrades*

 All three health insurers will apply an upgrade rule if you increase  your hospital cover for an existing medical condition.  This means that  any claims for the existing medical condition will still be paid on the  basis of your previous cover for a period of 2 – 5 years depending on  your age.  For any new condition that arises that wasn’t there before  the change, industry practice has been to apply the new benefits to any  claims for this condition. However, VHI Healthcare has now introduced an  amendment to the upgrade rule which means if you upgrade your cover,  the higher benefits will not apply until a minimum waiting period has  been served, regardless of whether this is a new condition.  This  waiting period ranges from six months to two years depending on your age  at the time of changing your cover.  Essentially, this means that you  will be paying for something from which you can’t benefit for a set  period of time which should be considered by all members before altering  their cover.


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## Brendan Burgess (31 Jan 2014)

The Aviva Handbook has the following in Section 4 





> Exclusion period following an upgrade in cover
> 
> 
> The supplementary exclusion period shall be two years following the change to a higher plan but five years for people aged 65 or over.


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