jb81,
If your wife cancels now and rejoins in a few years time, she will be treated as a new customer for health insurance purposes.
This just means that she would be covered for accidents and injuries for the first 6 months and then fully covered for new illnesses after that.
If she developed an illness during the cancelled time, there would be a five year waiting time before this illness would be covered under health
insurance in the future.
Price wise, she will be given a 2% credit for every year that she had health insurance in the past, so there should be no loadings applied,
due to 'lifetime community rating'.
The following link shows a list of questions and answers relating to 'Lifetime Community Rating'.
https://www.hia.ie/consumer-information/lifetime-community-rating-explained
I'm not sure what plan they are on at the moment or their renewal date.
There may be cheaper alternatives.
Laya have a childrens offer from April 1st 2018 where you pay for the first child and the rest of the children are free.
Flex 125 Explore @ price 327 covers all 3 children.
https://www.hia.ie/news/laya-healthcare-price-changes-01042018
There are 2 plans; Essential Health 300(price 234) and Essential Connect Family (238) both have this same offer until March 31st 2018.
[broken link removed]
The following Laya adult options are cheap alternatives;
[broken link removed]
Regards, Snowyb