{"id":301744,"date":"2026-02-20T21:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/301744\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T21:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:51:07","slug":"laya-announces-premium-increases-of-up-to-9-6-on-popular-private-health-plans-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/301744\/","title":{"rendered":"Laya announces premium increases of up to 9.6% on popular private health plans \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health insurer<\/a> Laya<\/a> has announced an average 4.7 per cent rise in the cost of cover<\/a>. The company said it will add around \u20ac80 to the cost of private cover per adult across 65 plans.<\/p>\n

The insurer, which has around 720,000 customers making it the second largest player in the market, blamed healthcare costs, which, it said, are rising globally and in Ireland. <\/p>\n

Laya last raised prices in October, by an average of 4.5 per cent. It also imposed a 6.6 per cent increase earlier in the year. In percentage terms, its average prices have been rising faster than those of its rivals, VHI <\/a>and Irish Life Health<\/a> in recent times.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaya pays almost \u20ac9 of every \u20ac10 it receives in premiums back to members in claims,\u201d the company said, noting that increasing demand for private care \u2013 particularly in oncology, cardiology, orthopaedics and spinal surgery \u2013 had led to a 15 per cent rise in costs for private and high\u2011tech hospital bills. <\/p>\n

Laya said prices would remain unchanged on 37 \u2013 or over one-third \u2013 of its plans, with reductions applied to several others.<\/p>\n

Analyst Dermot Goode<\/a> said the increases would see premiums rising by anything from \u20ac62 to \u20ac217 per adult depending on the plan they are signed up to. <\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at some of their mid-level schemes, this could cost a typical family an extra \u20ac148-\u20ac203 for the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that the rise in premium on some plans would be over 9 per cent<\/p>\n

\u201cFor their popular Simply Connect Plus scheme, we understand this will increase by 9.6 per cent which is an extra \u20ac261 per adult or \u20ac520 a year for a retired couple,\u201d Mr Goode said.<\/p>\n

He advised Laya customers to ignore the headline \u201caverage\u201d increase and check the actual impact of whatever plan they have signed up to. \u201cCustomers must avoid auto-renewing without reading the small print, Goode said.<\/p>\n

While noting that the announcement had been expected after VHI and Irish Life had announced higher premiums for their customers in the last month, he said the news \u201ccouldn\u2019t have come at a worse time for consumers and no doubt many will have no choice but to shop for better value\u201d.<\/p>\n

Laya has introduced more free cover options for children under the age of 18 as well as reductions in the price of cover for children and young adults on certain plans.<\/p>\n

But it is reducing cover in other areas. Outpatient excess is rising on 47 Laya plans while the company is also introducing \u201cshortfalls\u201d on orthopaedic and ophthalmic procedures across more plans which means patients will be required to fund part of the cost out of their own pocket.<\/p>\n

The insurer said it is retiring 16 of its older plans \u201cto simplify choice and improve member value\u201d. Anyone on those plans will be transferred to \u201csuitable and better value alternative plans at renewal\u201d, Laya said.<\/p>\n

Commentating on the rise in premiums, managing director Dermot O\u2019Connor said: \u201cOur members want to be seen quickly, have real choice in their care, and know they\u2019re getting good value. We\u2019ve taken care in this review to balance affordability with access.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the insurer was also investing in faster access and benefits in areas where members feel the greatest pressure, \u201cparticularly specialist access in areas like dermatology and menopause\u201d. <\/p>\n

Profits at Laya Healthcare more than doubled last year to \u20ac19.02 million. The company is owned by French headquartered insurance giant, Axa <\/a>after its \u20ac650 million acquisition from Corebridge Financial, a subsidiary of rival AIG<\/a>, in October 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health insurer Laya has announced an average 4.7 per cent rise in the cost of cover. The company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,3986,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-301744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-insurance","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}