Basic health insurance

My health insurance is up next week and am getting totally confused by all the options and policies out there so hoping there might be someone who can help me with a few questions.

For years my employer paid for a very good policy for myself and my family but the company has now closed so I'm unemployed (my husband still works). Health insurance is one of the few 'luxuries' we really don't want to do without, but also cannot afford to splash out on the type of policies we used to have. The cover is for myself, my husband (both in early 30's) and 2 children (aged 1 and 4). None of us have any health issues at the moment but my husband did dislocate his knee during last summer so that may cause some waiting period issues if we switch insurers and he had any further knee problems or dislocated it again?

I live in Waterford right beside the public hospital, but there is a private hospital here too (Whitfield clinic).

One of my confusions is if we go for only public hospital cover is there really much benefit over going through the normal public system? Like would it be worth our while having the cover for just public hospital?

Ideally would like semi-private or private room cover but know that rooms aren't guaranteed so that's a 'would be nice' but not essential.

The idea of the 'activate' plans with Glo sounds good, but just read another thread where that may affect waiting periods in the future which wouldn't be ideal.

Can anyone recommend any plans they might have got recently for families that were good value or any I should steer clear of?

Thanks

sillysocks said:

my husband did dislocate his knee during last summer so that may cause some waiting period issues if we switch insurers and he had any further knee problems or dislocated it again?

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Switching insurers does not affect waiting periods if you don't reduce the level of cover.

You could try Glo's Net More 300/500 or Laya's Advantage plans, all will give you public hospital cover and cover in Whitfield with a 300 or 500 excess.

Thanks Mexicola I will look into those plans. It's hard to decide on the balance between lower premiums and the level of cover (especially when fingers crossed we may not even use it!)

Thanks Brendan too, I guess it's making sure that the cover is like for like, although at the moment we do have semi-private cover in private hospital so may end going down to just public hospital cover this time.