Quinn Healthcare premiums to rise by 15%

THE COST of health insurance from Quinn Healthcare is to go up by an average of 15 per cent in 2010, the company announced yesterday. It said the price increase was a direct result of the Government-imposed health insurance levy, which amounts to €60 per adult, regardless of plan.

The company said the levy represented 48 per cent of the premium for its cheapest product and 6 per cent on higher level plans.

Quinn Healthcare claimed the levy was reducing the number of new customers and forcing existing customers out.

General manager Donal Clancy called on the Government to remove the levy. If the levy were removed he said the company would freeze its prices for 2010.

According to a recent Health Insurance Authority report, there were 2,278,000 people insured by the various companies in the market in June this year.

This represents 51.5 per cent of the overall population. The data indicated that the number of people covered by private health insurance had fallen by 21,000 since the end of last year.

However, Minister for Health Mary Harney told the Dáil this month that “people have switched from one provider to another. People have left the VHI to take out insurance with some of its competitors,” she said.

Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said the State’s largest health insurer, VHI, had estimated that by the end of next year the number dropping out would have increased to 200,000.