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Health Insurance | SPECIAL REPORT

Dónal Clancy, General Manager, Quinn Healthcare.

“Our biggest

switchers this year

have cOme frOm the

sme cOmmunity.”

– Dónal clancy

health advisors can speak with staff about issues like stress, smoking cessation and general well-being.” Aviva’s approach to the SME market is similar.

“What we find in this sector is that companies have never really reviewed their requirements or those of its staff. So, we send in health professionals in an effort to gain an insight into what is required. At every stage we are trying to give collective value for both employers and employees. We do that by introducing good plans and additional benefits like a bespoke counseling service for staff, for example.” While both Quinn and Aviva are doing their utmost to facilitate their clients in difficult times, the healthcare levy imposed following a Supreme Court decision to overturn the risk equalisation scheme has meant that private healthcare customers are experiencing a hike in their premiums. O’Neill, whose company started the ‘Axe the Levy’ campaign last year, believes if the levy is not scrapped, it is customers who will ultimately suffer. “The levy is there to support the market dominance of the VHI,” he says. “In all sectors in Ireland where there is a dominant player and where competition is not allowed

to function as it should, the consumer is the one that ultimately pays. We believe our arrival, particularly as Aviva, has brought dynamism to this market that wasn’t there before. You can see that in our advertising campaigns and from the responses from our competition. We believe we have given the customer real choice. However, the levy favours one provider over another and it is anti-competitive. We are certainly not opposed to the concept of community rating; in fact we support it wholeheartedly. However, this levy simply supports a dominant player. We’re certainly not happy about it and ultimately we feel that it is the consumer that pays the price in a monopolised market.”

Not surprisingly, Quinn Healthcare and Dónal Clancy are equally miffed. “Aviva and ourselves are competing in an open market but we are competing against a monopoly dominant player,” Clancy insists. “We have no issue with community rating but we do have a problem with what is effectively a stealth tax to pay for the inefficiencies of a competitor that owns roughly 70 per cent of the market. It is completely anti- competitive in our view.” The effects of the levy are already ringing through. Aviva said that it has been able to absorb much of the impact of the levy up to now, but the Government had recently increased

the levy from €160 to €185, and as a result it has to pass the increase onto the consumer. O’Neill says that if the levy was abolished Aviva would reduce its premia by up to 30 per cent. VHI announced an 8 per cent increase in January, while Quinn Healthcare announced a 15 per cent increase last November. Clancy takes a similar view. “As long as we continue to increase our prices, more and more people will leave the market. If that happens then healthcare will become more unaffordable for those who stay in the market. Community rating is an excellent principle but it falls down when the cost of healthcare insurance is driving out younger customers and driving up costs for remaining customers. The consumer is suffering badly. If we did not have to contend with the levy this year then we certainly not have had to impose the 15 per cent increase.” For more on health plans from Aviva, visit www.aviva.ie. For more on health plans from Quinn Healthcare, log on to www. quinn-healthcare.com. Visit www.hia.ie for price comparisons.

Eoin O’Neill, Sales Director, Aviva Health.

“we are encOuraging

peOple tO talk tO

us if they are in

financial Difficulty;

we can Offer sOme

sOlutiOns anD

OppOrtunities arOunD Different plans.” – eOin O’neill

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