Health Insurance Health Insurance advice for someone accustomed to NHS free healthcare

I contacted Dermot Goode's company (Total Health Cover) and they advised that they feel annual increases of up to 15% is fair and reasonable and can still be considered good value. This is way out of kilter with Dermot's past advice of allowing for a 5% increase per year. In his interviews Dermot keeps saying that the first thing you need to do is decide on your budget. But it's very difficult to decide upon, particularly as there seems to be no good rule of thumb / back of napkin calculation for it.

I had thought about looking at the average premium figure as a percentage of the average salary but perhaps that is not a good methodology. It used to be so much easier when Dermot used to say that you needed to spend roughly €100 per month for good value cover.

I don't really find the HIA comparison tool all that great for comparing plans. Perhaps I should just download the table of benefits for a few different plans and stick them into an AI chatbot to see what it comes up with.

Called VHI to review my cover, they went through 5 questions over 10mins and told me that PMI 4316 is still coming up on their system as the most suitable plan for me and that they would be recommending that I stay as I am. They said if I really wanted to save some money then I should consider PMI 5210. I had considered it last year but at that time it didn't include access to the Urgent Care (SwiftCare) clinics although they tell me it does now include it.