Health Insurance First time Health Insurance, go 'cheap' during waiting period?

sadie

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Hi, helping a friend look for first time Health Insurance. They are early 50's. As there will be 2% loading of Lifetime community Rating and a 26 week waiting time, would Laya Precision 600 Connect be a good bet to start with? My thinking is they can increase their cover once the waiting period is over...so they are not 'wasting' money during the 6 months they can't avail of it anyway?

I just chose Laya because I know the Laya policies but there might other more reasonable ones for a single adult on a lowish income.
 
sadie,

Just to explain a couple of things, a person in their early 50s will have a 32% plus loading on whatever plan they choose.
The loading is 2% per year for every year they are over the age of 35 years of age.

Regardless of whatever plan a person picks, there is a 5 year waiting time to serve for any illness already existing.

While Laya Precision 600 Connect is an ok plan, if the person lives in Dublin, there is a very limited list of private hospitals on this plan.
The Dublin choice is 'The Hermitage and Santry Sports Clinic on this plan. If they are ok with this, its the cheapest private hospital plan available.

If they start off on this plan and then upgrade to a plan with all private hospitals included, there will be a 2 year wait before the extra hospitals
are covered.

The following 2 Laya plans cover all public, private and hi-tech hospitals. Details as follows;
1. Flex 500 Explore; price 832pa + loading; all public, private and 3 hi-tech hospitals covered; 500 excess per private hospital admission, 150 excess per day case procedure. Note; just cardiac and orthopaedic surgery is covered in the 2 hi-tech hospitals Mater Private and Blackrock Clinic. Full cover for all surgery in the Beacon hospital, with excess etc.
2. Control 600 Connect; price 852pa + loading; all public, private and 3 hi-tech hospitals covered, 600 excess per private hospital admission, 175 excess day case procedure. All surgery is covered, with excess etc, in the 3 hi-tech hospitals on this plan.
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The following 2 VHI plans cover all public and private hospitals, but orthopaedic cover for hip or knee replacement surgery is not great on these
plans at 60%.
1. One Plan 250; price 916 + loading; all public and private hospitals covered + Beacon hi-tech hospital covered, 250 excess for 2 private admissions.
2. One Plan 500; price 769 + loading; all public and private hospitals + hi-tech Beacon hospital covered, 500 excess for 2 private admissions.
Note; Both plans have 60% cover for hip and knee replacement surgery.
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Regards, Snowyb
 
Last edited:
Hi Snowyb

Just double checking. The Beacon Hospital is a hi-tech. I thought all procedures in the Beacon were covered under the Flex Explore plans? – subject to the usual excess.

Thanks
 
1dave123,

Yes, your absolutely right, I have corrected the above post accordingly.
Thanks for that.

Snowyb
 
No worries - I love your posts by the way. Have learned a lot from them over the years. All the best.
 
Gulp. The loading figure means it has to be the cheapest one I guess to make it doable. So does the Loading reduce over time? It'd be Galway hospitals we are talking about. Thanks for the reply.
 
No, the loading does not reduce over time, unfortunately.
They would have needed to join before May 2015, in order to avoid the loading.

Precision 600 Connect covers all Galway public hospitals and the Bons Secours Galway private hospital.
The Galway Clinic is not covered on this plan.

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Regards Snowyb
 
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