Health Insurance Lifetime Community Rating

D

DirectDevil

Registered User
Messages
920
I am aware of the general principles in relation to first time applicants over 35 years of age.

I am a little unsure about the issue of Illness Benefit and or Invalidity Pension as it applies to years when you may not have had health insurance.

As I read it, you will receive credit for the time that you received Illness Benefit / Invalidity Pension as if you actually held health insurance during that period. Is that right ?

Suppose I had no health insurance since 01.01.2000.
Suppose that I received and still receive Illness Benefit or Invalidity Pension from 01.01.2000. Would those 16 years up to 31.12.2016 be regarded as having held health insurance for LCR purposes ?
 
You seem to be confusing private health insurance with cash social welfare benefits.

AFAIK, they are not related.
 
Thanks for the answers. I may not have explained my query properly !

We are trying to work out a problem for a relative who is a bit baffled by the regulations !! If I can set out the brief background the query might make more sense.

HISTORY.

My uncle is 60.
He has not worked for 20 years due to illness.
He has been in continuous receipt of Disability Benefit and then Invalidity Pension since 1996 from Social Welfare.
He was retired by his employers on medical grounds - no redundancy involved.

INSURANCE.

He was insured under a private / in-house medical scheme. I think it was not risk equalised.
The scheme closed 10 years ago and time served did not count with insurers on the open market.
He took out cover with BUPA in Ireland, then Quinn then Laya.
Cover has been continuous since 2006.

QUERY.

Premiums are becoming financially problematical for him.
He is wondering about dropping cover totally (as distinct from dropping the level of cover).

Q1. If he dropped cover for say 5 years would he face a LCR loading if he insured again ?

I suspect that he probably would.

Q2. Assuming he continues to receive social welfare benefits does he get any form of LCR credit because of his social welfare benefits history.

He seems to have got ideas about this from Irish Life's well detailed website pages on the subject. Two links
i)
ii) [broken link removed]

Sorry if this is long but we want to try and nail it down. Thanks.
 
If he drops cover for 5 years he'll have a 42% loading when he takes it out again. Age 65 taking it out again - 34 - 10 years credits for continuous cover since 2006 = 21 x 2%.

He won't receive LCR credits for his social welfare benefits history.
 
Many thanks.

For clarity, why would his social welfare history not count towards LCR credit ? Does something else have to happen to allow social welfare history to count ?
 
Many thanks.

For clarity, why would his social welfare benefit history not count towards LCR credit ? Does something else have to happen to allow social welfare history to count ?
 
Social welfare credits count if you dropped your insurance due to becoming unemployed after 2008
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top