People infected with hepatitis C and HIV through infected blood and blood products will be able to avail of a scheme to help them obtain life assurance.
The scheme will give those who have been infected reasonable access to the insurance market at a cost that would otherwise be prohibitive or unavailable.
Unveiling the Bill to allow for the scheme, Minister for Health Mary Harney said it had been clear from March 1997 that infected people's inability to buy life assurance or mortgage protection policies added "further problems to the damage they had already suffered.
"This is an important measure to provide further support to people, mainly women, diagnosed with hepatitis C and HIV as a result of contaminated blood products being administered to them," said Ms Harney.
Under the scheme, the State will pay the additional risk premium where the life assurer is willing to provide cover subject to an additional premium; where the assurer is not willing to provide cover the State will assume the risk.
The Bill also allows for the development of a scheme for travel insurance.
The Health Service Executive will oversee the scheme, and it is estimated that it will cost between €1 million and €6.4 million per year.
Main parameters of the scheme:
- Life assurance to age 75, with a maximum life assurance cover of €400,000 or
seven times income of the eligible participant or his/her partner, or both, in respect of the tax year in which the proposal is submitted, up to a maximum of €500,000. These sums would be indexed in accordance with the Consumer Price Index.
- Mortgage protection cover up to age 75 on purchasing, changing or improving the primary residence, up to an overall maximum of the Average House Price (Dublin)+ 25 per cent
or €375,000, indexed in accordance with TSB/ESRI (Dublin) House Price Inflation;
- For an initial period of 12 months from the commencement date (or, if later, three years from the date hepatitis C/HIV is diagnosed) all persons with hepatitis C/HIV would be entitled to apply for cover under the Scheme. Thereafter, a waiting period would apply, during which full cover may be phased in over two years for the under-50s and three years for over-50s.
- In order to ensure equity there will be an open period for young people who are not ready to avail of insurance/mortgage protection at this time, until the date of their 30th birthday.
- The maximum age of entry into the scheme will be 65 years and the age at which cover will cease will be 75. However, persons up to age 75 will be able to take out insurance cover in the first year of operation of the scheme.