Health Insurance New Health Insurance provider launches

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Refreshing tbf and hopefully they will have easy to distinguish names e.g. bronze, silver, gold, diamond
i am convinced the number codes used by VHI PMI and the endless similar variations by laya (simply, simplicity, control connect, control create) is designed to confuse even more than the number of plans!
 
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messyleo said:
i am convinced the umber codes used by VHI PMI and the endless similar variations by laya (simply, simplicity, control connect, control create) is designed to confuse even more than the number of plans!
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Don't think there's any doubt or mystery about that. I'm sure that the providers would argue that they're giving consumers more choice but many people would conclude that the preponderance of subtly different plans with meaningless names are designed to obfuscate and confuse.
 
JoeRoberts said:
Backed up by the ridiculous HIA compare website.
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Agreed - it's almost useless for shopping around in my experience.

And with most policies it's extremely difficult to know if and to what extent a particular incident will be covered until you are actually in the middle of it and have procedure codes and know where it's going to take place and can, at that point, call the insurer and ask them. And even then, in my experience, it can be difficult to get a straight answer.
 
Cameo said:
I remember asking the CFO of a health insurer who I knew which plan was best, they said they hand no clue as they were too complicated and they didn’t have time to research.
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Reminds me of this..................

www.youtube.com

You're a Banker | Yes, Minister | BBC Studios

Humphery is advising Sir Desmond about the possibilities of making the Minister make the decision that they want him to make.Subscribe: http://bit.ly/BBCStud...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
There is some legal requirement which leads to the proliferation of plans.

If I recall correctly, this is the reason:

If they have Plan A and decide to introduce Plan B. As long as there are people still on Plan A, they must keep it there. And, they must offer all plans to all customers. So they can't just close Plan A to new customers. The result is that the number of plans keeps increasing.

I remember proposing that there should be three basic plans for all insurers. They would have to offer those.
Then they could offer variations e.g. Basic plan + maternity leave.

It would make it far easier to compare plans.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
There is some legal requirement which leads to the proliferation of plans.

If I recall correctly, this is the reason:

If they have Plan A and decide to introduce Plan B. As long as there are people still on Plan A, they must keep it there. And, they must offer all plans to all customers. So they can't just close Plan A to new customers. The result is that the number of plans keeps increasing.

I remember proposing that there should be three basic plans for all insurers. They would have to offer those.
Then they could offer variations e.g. Basic plan + maternity leave.

It would make it far easier to compare plans.
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I could be wrong but I think a big issue is group schemes, there can be lot of different variations and you need to technically make them available to all customers although they wont necessarily know what they are.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
If they have Plan A and decide to introduce Plan B. As long as there are people still on Plan A, they must keep it there. And, they must offer all plans to all customers. So they can't just close Plan A to new customers. The result is that the number of plans keeps increasing.
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I'm not sure that's true. Wasn't there some fuss recently about a few long-standing plans being "retired" by VHI. The suggested alternatives didn't always suit.
 
They could, if they wished, introduce a simple "modular" insurance package.

Main module of compulsory cover for the legally required minimum (e.g. maternity cover for all).
Then optional modules for all the other things e.g. Private rooms, daily expenses (50%, 75%), Orthopaedic cover (80%, 100%) etc etc
Choosing a plan would then just involve ticking a few boxes (though I know it's a bit more than that).

Of course, even if they did that, no doubt the modules would be packaged up into "plans" over time, and we would be back where we started.
 
m.independent.ie

Health insurance regulator is working to get providers to reduce number of plans in Irish market

The regulator for health insurance is to make a determined effort to get providers to reduce the number of plans in the Irish market.
m.independent.ie m.independent.ie
It isn't paywalled for me but in case it is for others here's a summary snippet:
The regulator for health insurance is to make a determined effort to get providers to reduce the number of plans in the Irish market.

There are 349 schemes on offer, leaving consumers “overwhelmed” when trying to compare them, according to the Health Insurance Authority (HIA).

The regulator said it may propose legislation to the Department of Health if it cannot get agreement on providers voluntarily cutting the number of plans.
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euroDilbert said:
I'm not sure that's true. Wasn't there some fuss recently about a few long-standing plans being "retired" by VHI. The suggested alternatives didn't always suit.
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You're right. VHI have pulled some of their plans with no directly similar replacement. Compaies can cull plans whenever they want (not mid contract obviously but at renewal time)
 
euroDilbert said:
They could, if they wished, introduce a simple "modular" insurance package.

Main module of compulsory cover for the legally required minimum (e.g. maternity cover for all).
Then optional modules for all the other things e.g. Private rooms, daily expenses (50%, 75%), Orthopaedic cover (80%, 100%) etc etc
Choosing a plan would then just involve ticking a few boxes (though I know it's a bit more than that).

Of course, even if they did that, no doubt the modules would be packaged up into "plans" over time, and we would be back where we started.
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Nice idea. Another approach could be to standardise all plans to either, excesses, or caps or shortfalls so you could compare plans directly e.g. 500 excess vs 300 excess like house insurance. Very difficulty to compare a 300 euro excess plan with a 10% shortfall plan imo and work out which might be a better deal for you in terms of balancing risk

I really don't like the 80% cover options etc either - no certainty what costs you would potentially face and if it might be sufficient cover. At least if it is 100 euro a night shortfall or whatever you can have some idea.
 
messyleo said:
I really don't like the 80% cover options etc either - no certainty what costs you would potentially face and if it might be sufficient cover. At least if it is 100 euro a night shortfall or whatever you can have some idea.
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I also don't like the confusing jargon that usually means that it's almost impossible to figure out a priori what's covered and to what extent. E.g. What's the difference between an excess, a shortfall, a co-payment, etc.?
 
messyleo said:
Nice idea. Another approach could be to standardise all plans to either, excesses, or caps or shortfalls so you could compare plans directly e.g. 500 excess vs 300 excess like house insurance. Very difficulty to compare a 300 euro excess plan with a 10% shortfall plan imo and work out which might be a better deal for you in terms of balancing risk

I really don't like the 80% cover options etc either - no certainty what costs you would potentially face and if it might be sufficient cover. At least if it is 100 euro a night shortfall or whatever you can have some idea.
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Having shortfalls on procedures highly correlated to older age is also contrary to community rating imo
 
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