Level Health, which is backed by insurance giant Aviva, said it will increase the cost of three of its four plans by 4pc from February.<\/p>\n
The insurer has a price freeze in place till February.<\/p>\n
It comes as health insurance premium rises for VHI Healthcare, Laya Healthcare and Irish Life Health are set to be implemented from the start of January.<\/p>\n
This is the busiest time of the year for health cover renewals with around half of the market due to renew its cover between now and February. This amounts to around 1.25 million policyholders.<\/p>\n
Level Health said it is raising the cost of its Plans B, C and D, with no change to the price of Plan A.<\/p>\n
The average increase across all plans will be 4pc, while the price of Level Health\u2019s most popular plan, Plan B 300, will increase by 3.5pc.<\/p>\n
Broker Dermot Goode of HealthInsuranceIreland.ie said the rises will add around \u20ac100 for a family of two adults and two children renewing on the popular Plan B 300 from February 2.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jim Dowdall, CEO of health insurance provider Level Health. Photo: Gerry Mooney<\/p>\n
Today’s News in 90 Seconds – Friday, December 19 <\/p>\n
Level Health said this will be the first price adjustment implemented by it in 10 months.<\/p>\n
The company said: \u201cAs the price adjustment doesn\u2019t come into place until February 2, customers who take out a policy or renew their policy anytime between now and then can benefit from existing prices, offering certainty and predictability for their health insurance costs for the following 12 months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Level Health said it is also offering 50pc off all children under the age of 18 on Plan B and Plan C until February 1.<\/p>\n
In addition, Level Health is introducing a number of benefit enhancements to ensure customers continue to have strong and relevant cover for their healthcare needs. Some of these enhancements include full cover for a private room in a private hospital on Plan C, and improved cover for cancer screening services.<\/p>\n
Level Health chief executive Jim Dowdall blamed rising medical costs.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cLevel Health recognises the cost-of-living pressures faced by households and we work hard to keep any increase in the cost of our health insurance plans as low as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealthcare usage continues to rise, and the cost of providing care is increasing year on year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Dowdall said the price rise was necessary to ensure that the firm\u2019s customers can continue to access the healthcare services they need, when they need them.<\/p>\n
More people are accessing healthcare services, resulting in higher levels of claims across hospital treatment, specialist consultations and everyday medical expenses, Level Health said.<\/p>\n
As demand for healthcare continues to grow, the cost of delivering high-quality care also increases, which in turn impacts health insurance pricing across the market.<\/p>\n
Last month Irish Life Health said it is raising the cost of its premiums by an average of 5pc from January 1, having already announced a number of rises in the past year.<\/p>\n
The health insurance provider increased premiums in January, April and October.<\/p>\n
And it comes after multiple hikes from VHI Healthcare, Laya Healthcare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Level Health, which is backed by insurance giant Aviva, said it will increase the cost of three of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,3361,61,60,3362],"class_list":["post-200233","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\/200233","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=200233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}