Cover for your
company
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Despite cutbacks across the board, Irish companies and consumers are loath to ditch their healthcare insurance. However, as the market becomes increasingly ‘inequitable’ all of that may be about to change as costs continue to rise.
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IRISH CONSUMERS ARE RELUCTANT to
ditch their health cover, despite the fact that household budgets are shrinking fast from levies and layoffs. In fact, research from the Health Insurance Authority (HIA) last year found that consumers value private health insurance very highly and most were loath to let it lapse. Almost 2.3 million people (or 52 per cent of the population) in Ireland have private health insurance, a figure that has remained steady despite the economic turbulence of the past 18 months. “At Aviva, we are not experiencing a downturn in our business,” says Eoin O’Neill, Sales Director of Aviva Health. “In fact, we have been seeing an increase in our business, with over 270,000 customers choosing health insurance from Aviva, so its clear that there is a significant amount of switching activity going on in the market right now.”
Dónal Clancy, General Manager of Quinn
Healthcare, also cites switching activity to be up considerably this year as consumers and businesses shop around for the best value for money proposition on the market. “Over the past 12 months, the number of ‘switchers’ has been considerable. So far this year, 69 per cen of people joining Quinn Healthcare have switched from other health insurance providers. Growth of the magnitude that we have enjoyed is not what one expects in the middle of a recession but it is becoming more and more obvious that price and value have
60 InBusiness May 10
become key considerations when it comes to health insurance.”
HAVING TO ADJUST
While consumers may not be willing to allow their health insurance to become a casualty of cut backs, health insurers in Ireland have had to adjust their offers to come more in line with challenging monetary conditions, both in households and in businesses. “This has been very challenging,” says O’Neill of Aviva. “We have had a lot of customers coming to us to discuss their policies where they have suffered a significant reduction in household income or lost their jobs. We are encouraging people to talk to us if they are in financial difficulty; we can offer some solutions and opportunities around different plans. From our experience so far, people may be stepping back on their cover but they are certainly not dropping out of health insurance altogether.” Clancy of Quinn Healthcare agrees with O’Neill and says his firm is dealing with similar issues. “People who have been made redundant are downgrading their cover but they are not leaving the market,” he says. “Historically, 18 per cent of our clients would have paid
for their insurance at the beginning of the year. This year, many of those customers are looking at alternative ways of paying, such as monthly subscriptions, for example. The next option for those that still need to cut back is to downgrade.”
FOLLOWING SUIT
As consumers stubbornly hold onto their health insurance, it seems that the corporate community is following suit. Clancy says that the biggest switchers this year have come from the SME community who, having had to cut costs considerably, are looking for more value for money from their health plans. “In the past there was a certain level of inertia around corporate health plans,” says Clancy. “Today, however, companies are reassessing their costs across the board and obviously health insurance comes into that. At Quinn, we believe that we offer better value for money and better benefits than our competitors. We believe we offer the only infertility treatment cover in the Irish health insurance market and the best cancer cover. We also have the GP line, which is unique in this market. Companies can also avail of our health-at-work programmes where occupational
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