The hike in the levy comes at a time when a succession of price hikes are set to mean higher-cost cover for millions of people when they renew their policies.<\/p>\n
The annual levy supports the community rating system which allows everyone, regardless of their age, health status and other risk factors, to buy the same health insurance policy at the same price \u2013 known as risk equalisation.<\/p>\n
The State regulator, the Health Insurance Authority, said that from April 1 next the levy on what are called advanced plans will increase by \u20ac48 to \u20ac517 a year.<\/p>\n
This means the levy will account for almost a third of the price of the average premium, which is \u20ac1,840.<\/p>\n
Advanced plans are what most people have as they cover private and public health facilities.<\/p>\n
The child advanced plan levy is going up by \u20ac16 to \u20ac172.<\/p>\n
For adults on non-advanced plans, which essentially give cover for treatments in public hospitals, the levy is going up by \u20ac9 to \u20ac103.<\/p>\n
For a child the levy is going up by \u20ac3 to \u20ac34.<\/p>\n
The annual levy supports the community rating system which allows everyone, regardless of their health status and other risk factors, to buy the same health insurance policy at the same price \u2013 known as risk equalisation.<\/p>\n
During Covid the levy, which is also referred to as stamp duty, came down because there was a surplus in the Risk Equalisation Fund due to lower claims during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
But it has being going up ever since.<\/p>\n
VHI Healthcare is the main beneficiary of the risk equalisation scheme that compensates insurers with a disproportionately large share of older and sicker customers.<\/p>\n
Health Insurance Authority (HIA) chief executive Brian Lee said: \u201cWithout the REF [Risk Equalisation Fund], older or less healthy consumers could face significantly higher premiums, or insurers might avoid covering them altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese changes help maintain a fair and inclusive health insurance system for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Lee said recent research undertaken by the HIA shows that the majority of people (64pc) agree with community rating, which means less healthy or older people pay the same as younger or healthier people.<\/p>\n
He said the research shows that 73pc agree with open enrolment, that is that insurers should offer cover to everyone who requests it.<\/p>\n
VHI, Laya and Irish Life Health have all announced price hikes in the past few months.<\/p>\n
Some plans are going up by close to \u20ac500, with more advanced ones rising by \u20ac950 a year for an adult.<\/p>\n
Some 500,000 people are due to renew their cover between now and the start of January in what is the busiest period for renewals each year.<\/p>\n
Leading broker Dermot Goode of Health Insurance Ireland said the levy rise amounts to an increase of 10pc on the current levy.<\/p>\n
He said it the higher levy would add around \u20ac128 a year to an average family\u2019s cover.<\/p>\n
Mr Goode said there was little doubt that the health insurers would pass on the higher levy to consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The hike in the levy comes at a time when a succession of price hikes are set to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,3361,61,60,3362],"class_list":["post-147231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-charlie-weston","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-money-experts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}