New born health insurance

Levitate

Hi all

I'm looking at adding our new born baby to my VHI Policy. As far as I understand, the baby's policy is free up my expiry date (November).

I'm finding it a bit confusing in relation to what cover we should get for him. I am currently on a relatively basic plan (One Plan 250). I suppose my question is whether his cover needs to be linked to my cover or is it completely separate.

I don't really want to have to amend my existing cover. Is there separate child plans or is it all family or parent and child plans.

Any advice on this or tips about what we should be looking out for would be appreciated. What should I be looking for in the policy given that our GP visits are part of under 6 scheme.

DavyD_83

As far as I am aware (and how it worked for us), once you inform the insurance company of the baby's existence by confirming Date of Birth, they are added with exact same policy as you.
So, if you are entitled to upto €30 back on 5 GP visits (random example, no clue what is normal),
you are still entitled to cover of 5 visits, and baby is also entitled to cover for 5 visits.
Your policy is essentially duplicated for the baby.

Not sure how it works after renewal date. In our case we took her off mny policy after that and moved to my wife's because she has a much better policy. Initially we added to mine, because I had 9 months to renewal, wife had 1

Previous thread: Is child health insurance worth it?

uck51js9zml2yt

After renewal date you need to pay.
There is no private medical care in general for kids in the 2 major hospitals.
You can see a consultant free and get treatment in some of the private hospitals.
You don't generally need the same level for kids as for adults.

jlm29

Your baby will be one the same plan as you. After renewal, you can choose a different plan for baby, or the same- if your plan has a lot of cover for every day expenses such as gp, you don't need this for baby. In general, I would be of the opinion that adults need better cover than kids- if kids need treatment, they will generally be prioritised in the health system. but I know plenty people would do it the other way around.

cyning

You can pick whatever plan you want for your baby on Laya: I didn't know that and on her third admission to a private hosp by 4 months at €125 excess each time I rang to ask what I could change her to at renewal to find it was free to change straight away. Free to renewal with whatever policy. So I would check with VHI they all tend to be the same.

I have far better cover for my kids than myself. I get 75% of all outpatients covered. If they are in hosp 3 nights I get parking charges fully covered (€62 the last time that happened) and 100% of the follow up appts. If you needed grommets/tonsils etc done there is a much longer wait even privately in the children's hospitals: it's easier if you have cover for private hospitals. If you've never had a child in need of using health insurance I can see why people think the health system prioritises kids and they do if there's a serious serious upfront problem. Other than that they do not. For example cardiology appts for kids you could wait 18 months publicly for an echo.

Coopaloop

We are with Aviva,and when I rang to add my child on the rep said go with the highest possible cover as its free and then at renewal look at something else more affordable. This happened with both my children. Not sure if that's the case with other health insurance cos.

dori_dormer

We are with vhi and with our first boy born 2 yrs ago, vhi automatically put him on the best policy available for free. We only found out at renewal when we saw the price lol!

Millem

I was with vhi and you pick whatever plan you like for your newborn until renewal

My guy is 2 now and has a better plan than us. The child prices are soooo much cheaper than adults so we thought we might as well