Number of people with health insurance cover increases

The number of people covered by in-patient health insurance plans increased last year to 2.174 million, the industry regualtor has said.

The Health Insurance Authority (HIA) said this represented an increase of 22,000 over the previous 12 months.

The HIA said that in addition to the 2.174 million with in-patient plans, a further 104,000 were insured with products that provided out-patient benefits or cash amounts.

The new HIA report shows that the health insurance market is continuing to recover after the economic crash but still has some way to go before the record numbers of 2008 are seen again.

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The peak of the market was seen late in 2008 when 2.3 million were covered by health insurance.

The HIA said “the percentage of the population with inpatient health insurance plans stood at 45.1 per cent at end of December 2017, compared to 2008 peak of 50.9 per cent.”

In December 2016 there were 2.152 million people covered with in-patient health insurance plans.