To cancel health insurance or not?

Baby01032012

My parents have private health insurance costing approx. €365 per month. They are in their 80s. My dad had spent 7 months in hospital due to his age rather than any particular condition that can be treated (public ward as no private or semi-private available). He has now gone to a nursing home he is paying for privately. He has medical card for medicines. GP etc, is part of the nursing home cost. There is no health insurance policy that gives a benefit towards nursing home care. Is there a benefit in keeping his private health insurance?

gaz wac

My mother and father, both 75, gave up VHI ( 5k a year) two years ago and went public. in the last two years, they've never been as sick ( not sick per say but need to go to the hospital) and we were dreading it....must say, they are doing great on it !!! they also have a med card. so their saving a bundle

okiss

If your parents are paying ?365 per month for health insurance that is ?4380 a year. They are each paying ?2190.

I say they are on one of the older vhi policies. I would look up the hia website to see what other policies they could be on that are cheaper. I know that Laya have some good policies for around ?1200 - to ?1500 a year each.

For your parents I would look at cover in the hi tech hospitals ie the blackrock clinic. Also see if the local private hospital is covered for a semi private room.
If they were willing to pay a shortfall of say ?200 per hospital stay it would bring down the cost.
The advantage of heath insurance is that if they needed an operation quickly they can have this ie if you mother needed a hip or knee replacement she could have it done in a few weeks rather than waiting 12 to 18 months on a public list. This would be after waiting a while to see a consultant in regards to this.

Laya also cover the full cost of these and some of the VHi policies only cover 80% of the cost of hip, knee replacement operations.

Is your mother still in good health? Does she has any underlying health conditions? Does she need to have any operations ie cateract removal or a hip replacement?
You could keep your mothers insurance and let his go. Just be aware that he could be left in pain for a long time if he needed certain operations to be done.

Quackster

As per the previous poster, if they both changed to, say, Laya Simplicity @ €1190 per annum, they'd be saving 50% straight away yet have as good (if not better) cover than they have now.

A complete no-brainer.

manonboard

Just echoing above again! I pay my mums care and its about 1150 or so. Amazing cover. I think you are on one of their older policies and getting shafted by not being informed a better product value available for you.

Baby01032012

Thanks for the information guys, I really appreciate it. I think I'll look at laya and compare or do a comparison across providers.

They are definitely being shafted. I put in a claim r recently for my mum for physiology and then consultant visit, and a mammogram. Rejected because only 13 per physio visit and 39 from 150 consultant visit and 0 for mammogram as they need a breakdown despite detailed report sent with the invoice. So the total was less than the excess and she got nothing.

My mum is reasonably healthy. She's had cancer 3 times and survived. But at 82 she still gets around and drives a car.

I'll probably keep insurance for both. I was considering not for my dad as he is in nursing home and spent 7 months in public hospital despite the cover he has.