Health Insurance Laya Simplicity increase 25% renewal 1st November, how is this so?

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NOAH

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Just got the renewal and its 25% now 4402 for 2 in our 70's. How can this be justified?

would a company policy similar be cheaper and how can I get it?

I know i am not alone but had to ask?
 
Hi Noah,

As I'm sure you already know that there have been a few price increases over the past few years hence the 25%.

If you have a listen to Dermot Goode's from totalhealthcover.ie podcast here you may get some advice.

For most people these days getting a policy with 100% for ortho and ophth seems to be important and expensive to maintain even with Laya.
 
Has LAYA Simply Connect Plus suffered a similar jump? That is usually suggested as comparable to Simplicity.
 
Having a closer look at renewal and there is a bit added. titled benefit changes and as the increase is 25% I'm thinking aha could be good but its worse, the excess has been increased!! where it was 50 its now 75, where it was 100 now 150, and where it was 175 shortfall for its now 325 per night!! And on it goes.

Is this called having you cake and eating the other persons portion as well.
 
I don't know whether you can do this, but the lower price and the better benefits are available on this 'til the end of September.
Even if you can, since you're a Nov 1 renewal, probably not worth your while?
 
I don't want to labour rhe point much further but is it the case they can do exactly as they want? A 25% increase when inflation is 3% is pretty shocking in any language. The excess for the beacon hospital is now €325 a night!! How much is the full cost??

I did contact LAYA for an explanation and asked about company plans but got a very poor reply, in fact it was dreadful. In one of the emails I found this sentence and was perplexed.

"
I do need to advise you that if there are any signs or symptoms of a condition present when you change your cover, a two-year additional cover waiting period applies to these conditions for any improved in-patient benefits. This waiting period also applies where the scheme has improved scheme excess and shortfalls. During this two-year waiting period, your previous scheme benefits would apply for those conditions."

What does this mean? I would be moving from simplicity to simply connect, as an example i.e from better to worse.

And finally how they can justify charging extra for a monthly payment? They don't do anything!!

In my 53 years as an adult I have never had a request for insurance that has a 25% increase and they made a profit of 35 million.
 
NOAH said:
I don't want to labour rhe point much further but is it the case they can do exactly as they want?
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I could be wrong but I thought that health insurers had to run their products and prices by the HIA first?
NOAH said:
A 25% increase when inflation is 3% is pretty shocking in any language.
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Medical inflation isn't the same as consumer/general inflation.
NOAH said:
And finally how they can justify charging extra for a monthly payment? They don't do anything!!
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Isn't it the case that most or all insurers can and do charge extra for paying monthly rather than in full up front?
NOAH said:
In my 53 years as an adult I have never had a request for insurance that has a 25% increase and they made a profit of 35 million.
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If you don't like Laya's price and service why don't you shop around and take your custom elsewhere?
 
Laya excel care costs €60 per annum more than Simplicity.
Excel care has far better day to day cover and lower daily excess in Blackrock Clinic and Mater Private. However, certain ophthalmic, orthopaedic and cardiac procedures are only 80% covered with excel care.
I am on Simplicity, renewal 1st Feb and trying to research my options. Presumably, the insurance companies have so many policies to make comparisons difficult and I don’t find the HIA website user friendly.
 
go to laya website and click on join then you get an option to compare and you can highlight differences only, that excel care 20% of 14000 is 2800!! and hip replacement can be common
 
If we stay on the same Laya plan Control 600 Total for 2 adults and 2 young adults our increase this year is €1042 on last year.
I'm not sure I can find anything with full cover that's cheaper.

If you are on Simplicity do take a look at Control 600 Total. I put the comparision here:

Health Insurance Comparison Tool | HIA

Compare health insurance plans across a wide variety of providers in Ireland. You can also compare your current health insurance plan with other plans available.
www.hia.ie www.hia.ie


There is a higher excess for inpatient admissions in some private hospital, but it provides the same full private hospital cover with no shortfalls on the Ortho/Opathalmic.
By switching to Control 600 Total, you'd be saving a chunk every year (about 1k for two adults), and betting on the fact that you'll hopefully not need an inpatient admission, and if you did, you'd have easily 'saved' that money to pay your excess over the previous years, by being on the Control 600 Total instead of the Simplicity.

And with Control 600 Total, there is only €1 Outpatients excess, but the Outpatients reclaimable on the Control are more 'budget' defined amounts like €40 vs 50% of consultant fees on Simplicity.
 
Just noticed that the Simplicity renewal has increased by 25% for adults and 28% for children and benefits have been degraded with private hospital excesses being increased by 50% and Blackrock/Mater Private Dublin shortfall going from €175 to €325. I cant see any objective benefit improvement thats not just semantic mumbo jumbo (excess "up to" €x ect).

Does anyone know what plans from other suppliers are (roughly) equivalent to Laya Simplicity?

Opthalmic and Ortho is increasingly important to us.
 
Control Create 300 (Laya) is similar to Simplicity but I’m looking at Level Health D also.
Control Create still has 100% orthopedic and ophthalmic, private room but high excesses
 
thanks for the Control 300 Create suggestion. It looks similar to Simplicity with some higher excesses. BUT there appears (from the HIA website) to be no young adult sliding scale! So your 18 year old will pay full whack!
 
The no young adult discount may be a glitch and I'd contact Laya about this.
Anyway different family members can have different policies and indeed different providers.
The HIA comparison tool doesn't factor in the below from Level Health's site.

'To celebrate our launch, we are giving an extra 10% off all plans for a limited time!'

This of course makes Plan D much closer in price to Simplicity, for now!
 
charlie007 said:
To celebrate our launch, we are giving an extra 10% off all plans for a limited time!'
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When I was having a very quick look at their website the other day I thought I saw a mention of 1st December expiry of discount but then saw elsewhere that there was a mention of approx. mid-December so worth checking that out with them.
 
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