Health insurers report surge as age deadline looms

All the State’s health insurers reported a dramatic surge in calls yesterday as the deadline for taking out health insurance ahead of the introduction of Lifetime Community Rating approached at midnight.

The VHI said its volume of sales had jumped by 1,000 per cent compared with a normal week, while Laya Healthcare said there had been "a record number of calls" on the last day before the new system was introduced.

“It’s been busy all week and numbers continue to build,” a VHI spokeswoman said. “Weekly sales traffic is up over 1,000 per cent on the same time last year. Sales are coming from all sections of society and all parts of the country.”

An Aviva spokeswoman said there had been a “surge in calls” to its call centre and traffic to its website was up significantly.

Traffic

“As we anticipated, the volume of calls and traffic online has increased each day this week, with today by far our busiest yet,” the chief executive of

GloHealth

Jim Dowdall

said yesterday.

Under the new regime, which starts on Friday, anyone aged over 34 who does not have private health insurance will have to pay higher prices if they take out a policy.

For each year a person goes over 34, they will have to add 2 per cent to the cost of their annual premium.

So if, after the deadline, a 35-year-old takes out a policy that costs €1,000 they will have to pay €1,020. If they are 40, the policy will cost €1,120, and €1,320 if they are 50.

The maximum loading is 70 per cent for someone aged 69 or over. That means the €1,000 policy would cost €1,700 for a 70-year-old who takes out insurance for the first time.

The new regime is being introduced to encourage younger people to take out insurance to keep costs for older people down. Younger people have been leaving the market in recent years, which has put the system under pressure.