VHI may offer dental cover plans soon

Irish people will soon be able to buy dental health insurance for the first time

Irish people will soon be able to buy dental health insurance for the first time.The Irish Times has learned that a major US company, the Delta Dental Corporation, plans to link up with the VHI to offer consumers the opportunity to buy dental health insurance policies in the same way as they now buy private health insurance plans.

The plans are expected to be on offer from January next, and early estimates suggest policies will be sold from upwards of €150.

There are likely to be three or four different policies on offer, ranging from basic plans covering routine check-ups to ones covering crowns and orthodontics.

The president and chief executive officer of Delta Dental in Minnesota, Mr Michael Walsh, is in Dublin this week for a round of meetings with the VHI and Government officials as he attempts to put the final touches to arrangements for the product launch.

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His company already has a claims processing centre for the US market based in Claremorris, Co Mayo, where it trades as DeCare International and employs 140 people, and a software centre in Cork employing 80 people.

Mr Walsh confirmed yesterday that based on new business deals in the US alone in recent weeks, he will have to recruit an extra 80 new people to the Mayo operation between now and the New Year.

The company recently built a subsidiary office in Crossmolina, Co Mayo, where many of these new jobs will be based.

Furthermore he said the company will also be setting up a Dublin office to oversee the introduction of dental health insurance plans into the Irish market.

Mr Walsh is hopeful that with the new business which he expects to generate here and abroad, a further 70 jobs will be created by the company in the Republic over a two to three-year period.

Mr Walsh, who is originally from Claremorris but has spent about 30 years in the US, said he planned to use Ireland as a base to expand operations into Europe in the future, at which point there would be prospects for further job creation.

He said research conducted in the Republic suggested Irish people would welcome the opportunity to buy an affordable dental insurance policy offering a comprehensive set of benefits.

Such policies were purchased by 70 per cent of large corporations, 30 per cent of small companies and all arms of Government for their employees in the US, and he hopes the Irish will begin to do likewise.

He stated that the company's main emphasis was on preventive care and education, believing that if people go for regular check-ups, they are unlikely to have to undergo expensive dental treatments later.

Furthermore things like cancers of the mouth would be picked up earlier.

In addition, he said regular check ups, offered under the plan, could save employers a considerable sum every year because employees would then not have to be taking days off to attend to toothaches and other dental problems. He hopes the Government will take this on board when considering his appeal for tax rebates for dental insurance subscribers. Such rebates are already in place for private health insurance subscribers.

Mr Walsh will brief dentists when arrangements for the scheme are fully worked out.

Dentists, he says, will be paid directly by the company and will not have to sign any contracts.

Delta Dental Plan of Minnesota expects to report revenues of $1 billion this year.