Switch from Quinn to VHI - differences in dental cover

Hi,

My husband has a health insurance policy with Quinn - Essential Plus with Excess. Mine is with VHI First Plan Level 1. We want to move to just one policy.

With Quinn, he would get €25 per year towards dentist visits. With VHI, I would get €30 per vist up to 25 visits per year. If he was to move to my policy would there be a waiting period before he could claim for dentists visits?

Thanks, Triona

once he has served his waiting periods with quinn, that would transfer with him to vhi

As I understand it, there is no waiting period with new insurer if

• You have already served waiting period with old insurer

and

• you are changing to plan at same level

I do not know if the two plans you have mentioned are at the same level of cover.

If your husband is under 50, there shouldn't be any waiting period for the additional out-patient cover . If he is 50+, then he will have an initial waiting period to serve:

50 - 54 26 weeks
55 - 64 52 weeks​

65 or over 104 weeks.

Strictly speaking, it is an upgrade of cover so this benefit should be subject to the upgrade waiting period if the treatment was relating to a condition present prior to the upgrade. In practice though, this would require additional paperwork to accompany every receipt and from my experience it's too much hassle for health insurers with minimum gain for them (especially when brand new members under 50 would have full cover straight away).

That said, if your husband used up his benefit of 25 visits in a matter of days, you should expect a phone call from VHI when they get the claim .

Thanks guys. I will phone the VHI tomorrow anyway to confirm if the plan I'm on would be considered an upgrade of his current Quinn plan or the same level. I think they're approximately the same level of cover but the dental visits was one place where I saw a big difference.

Thanks for your help, Triona