The VHI is to increase the cost of the majority of its health insurance plans by 2 per cent from November 22nd.
It is the second price increase announced by the private health insurer in less than 12 months.
It said its health insurance business “continues to be loss-making” and claimed the additional revenue was needed to ensure it could “continue to fund the healthcare needs of its customers”.
A spokeswoman said it had recently been informed by the Department of Health that it had approved an increase in the number of private beds in a number of Dublin hospitals which would have the effect of increasing its customers’ healthcare costs by at least €15 million annually.
Schemes affected by the latest round of price increases include the HealthPlus Scheme, the Parents and Kids Scheme, the Lifestages Scheme (apart from One plan and One+ plan) and the Company plan scheme.
In January the company announced plans to increase the cost of its premiums by as much as 45 per cent. People insured under the company’s subsequently renamed Plan B and Plan B Options policies were hardest hit and saw the cost of their policies increase by between 35 and 45 per cent.
It has been a tumultuous year for the State’s largest health insurer. Its chief executive, Jimmy Toland, resigned after a row with Minister for Health James Reilly over plans for the future of the company and it was also in hot water when it emerged that it reduced the level of cover offered for certain treatments in private hospitals.
From the beginning of February, it stopped providing people in its parent and child schemes with full cover for some orthopaedic and ophthalmic procedures including knee and hip replacements and cataract operations if they were done in a private hospital. Instead, people were only entitled to 80 per cent cover.
The chief executive of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland Dermott Jewell condemned the latest price increases and said that while they were small they would still have the effect of pushing people on the margins out of the health insurance net.
“There have been so many increases from the VHI in recent years and some of them have been very severe,” he said. He said the company needed to focus on internal structures to see where savings could be made rather than passing the burden on to consumers. “What is most depressing is that the increase will come at a time when a very harsh budget is just around the corner.”