VHI Insurance & VHI Travel Poliicy and cancellations

Trampas

If you have VHI Health and Travel Insurance and their renewal date is not the same and you decide to cancel your health insurance.

They will automatically cancel your travel insurance at the same time with no refund.

I understand they might cancel your travel insurance but should your travel insurance not be set to your renewal date of your health insurance and you pay pro rata for the 1st year of the travel insurance so the both run side by side.

I would say 99% of people who have VHI travel insurance renewal date does not match their health insurance renewal date.

Maybe more suited to Rip Off Ireland as you get no refund

dudara

Moved to Banking & Insurance & Pensions

dudara

RangeR

Trampas wrote: »

If you have VHI Health and Travel Insurance and their renewal date is not the same and you decide to cancel your health insurance.

They will automatically cancel your travel insurance at the same time with no refund.

I understand they might cancel your travel insurance but should your travel insurance not be set to your renewal date of your health insurance and you pay pro rata for the 1st year of the travel insurance so the both run side by side.

I would say 99% of people who have VHI travel insurance renewal date does not match their health insurance renewal date.

Maybe more suited to Rip Off Ireland as you get no refund

I really don't see the problem. They are two different products and not really related. They don't need to have the same renewal date.

NuMarvel

This was something raised by the Competition Authority a number of years ago when they evaluated competition in the health insurance market, but nothing more has come of it.

The VHI's response was:

"We cannot understand why this recommendation singles out the Multi-Trip travel policy available from Vhi Healthcare. Notwithstanding the practical difficulties involved (the innovative travel insurance product eliminated the duplication of cover between travel and health insurance contracts) we would consider this recommendation only if it extended to a ban on any relationship between health insurance contracts and other contracts/services e.g. discounts, bundling, special conditions etc. If one type of condition has the potential to distort competition then so have other types of relationship e.g. a discount can be obtained on motor insurance through purchase of a competitor’s health insurance policy."

Pn Page 5 of this document.

A possible alternative is to switch to another insurer at the renewal date of your travel insurance, as in most cases you will get a refund on your health insurance if it's mid year, unless you've made a claim on it.

Another alternative is to ask VHI to change your renewal date to match your travel insurance.

Neither of these are fantastic alternatives though. In the first scenario, the other insurer may have a price increase in between your VHI renewal and your travel insurance renewal. And in the second scenario it may mean that you get a VHI price increase earlier than you used to.

cute_cow

You need to be a member of VHI and hold a valid health policy to purchase their travel insurance. If you do not hold a VHI Health policy, you cannot purchase travel indurance, therefore when you cancel your health policy, the travel policy is automatically cancelled too.
Am presuming this would be in the terms and conditions of the travel insurance policy, also explaining that no refunds would be given if health policy cancelled.