How to get cheaper Health Insurance

Class Act

Quick questions about health insurance:

I am looking to renew my health insurance soon. I buy my health insurance privately ie. not through my employer.

Q1. I have heard, once I pick a policy, if I ask for the corporate equivalent, I will get the same cover with a cheaper premium. Even though I will not be buying the insurance through my employer. Is this true? Can an individual get the corporate equivalent premium? Will this affect the level of cover?

Q2. I also heard I can claim tax relief on health insurance premium? Can I claim this from Revenue? Or is the tax relief deducted by the insurer?

peteb2

1. Nope. That used to be the case in the day - that's why we have 100 or so legacy plans across the insurers. Plus you have to specify the name of the plan. you can't say I'm on plan B, i'll have corporate plan b.

2. Nope. It's done at source.

dobsdave

Class Act wrote: »

Quick questions about health insurance:

I am looking to renew my health insurance soon. I buy my health insurance privately ie. not through my employer.

Q1. I have heard, once I pick a policy, if I ask for the corporate equivalent, I will get the same cover with a cheaper premium. Even though I will not be buying the insurance through my employer. Is this true? Can an individual get the corporate equivalent premium? Will this affect the level of cover?

Q2. I also heard I can claim tax relief on health insurance premium? Can I claim this from Revenue? Or is the tax relief deducted by the insurer?

The HIA.IE website has a comparison tool, which will give you the names of all the policies.

Some policies were set up for particular corporate customers that the providers would prefer the public weren't aware of.
However all policies must be made available to everyone.

Class Act

Thanks for the helpful replies.

I have just checked out hia.ie & it looks to be very useful - thanks for the tip!