Seven out of ten people with a health-insurance policy have never changed their provider or plan, according to new research from the Health Insurance Authority (HIA).<\/p>\n
The IPSOS HIA consumer survey for last year also indicates low levels of market movement, with 82% of consumers not shopping around when renewing their health insurance.<\/p>\n
According to the study, consumers stay an average of 20 years on the same health-insurance plans.<\/p>\n
High satisfaction with existing cover was the most commonly cited reason for not switching, followed by a belief that potential savings would be limited.<\/p>\n
The findings suggest of those customers who did switch provider, only 4% did so last year and just 15% switched plans with the same provider.<\/p>\n
This was despite significant premium increases and ongoing cost\u2011of\u2011living pressures, the HIA said.<\/p>\n
IPSOS carried out over 2,000 face-to-face interviews for the survey.<\/p>\n
Nearly one in two believe recent premium increases unjustified<\/p>\n
With regard to consumer sentiment, it found almost half of respondents (46%) believe recent premium increases are not justified, marking the highest level of dissatisfaction in a decade.<\/p>\n
Last year, average health-insurance premiums rose from \u20ac1,827 to \u20ac1,902, with some individual premiums rising by considerably more.<\/p>\n
The research indicates consumers typically require a cost saving of around 20% to consider switching, down from 22% in 2023 and 30% in 2021 and 2019.<\/p>\n
Also among the findings from the HIA study are that 46% of adults in Ireland pay for private health insurance, which is a slight increase on 2023.<\/p>\n
However, the research also found nearly one in five people who do not currently have a health-insurance policy did previously have one but cancelled it – the highest level of lapsing in over a decade.<\/p>\n
Cost was the primary reason consumers gave for not holding or giving up cover.<\/p>\n
The research comes as the HIA has launched a new free health-insurance comparison tool, which will be overseen by the State regulator for private health insurance.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the new tool, Chairperson of the HIA Patricia Byron said: “We would strongly encourage consumers to shop around each year when their plan comes up for renewal, and our new comparison tool provides a trusted and accessible starting point.”<\/p>\n
The HIA Consumer Survey is conducted every two years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seven out of ten people with a health-insurance policy have never changed their provider or plan, according to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-362071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362071","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=362071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}