Health Insurance for couple in mid 30s

If you go to the hia.ie website. Click on I would like to compare policies, then I don't know what's plans I want to compare, then in the drop down box click on to a semi private room in a private hospital.
This should give you a list of policies from apox 700 a year upwards.

If you want to price a policy that will cover a private room in a private hospital or a high tech hospital you can amend the above to a private room in a private hospital. These policies would be a lot more expensive.

Looking at a semi private room means that you can attend a private consultant and have a day case or over night/nights stay in a private hospital. Most health insurance policies will cover you in a public hospital also but if you need to see a consultant in a public hospital, need tests or an operation you will be put on a waiting list.

On the hia site you will then get a list of policies. If you click refine my search, you can refine your search by how much your willing to pay per year for a policy, what excess your willing to pay, you can also click that you want high day to day expenses and a low excess. You need to put the child age to 0 as you don't need child price's.

After this you can start to see what certain polices cover. You have a choice of cover in a public hospital, a private hospital ie at Vincent's private or a high tech hospital ie mater private/blackrock clinic or the beacon.

Some policies will only cover certain public and private hospital. They will have a hospital list you can click on. I would advise you to do this so know if your local private or public hospital is covered. In regards to the high tech hospital's full cover in these can be very expensive. They would be known for cancer, cardiac, orthopedics ect but public hospitals would offer these also.

When you click to see more information on a policy you are interested in you might see ie full cover or 60% cover for a semi private room or 60% cover for some operations ie orthopedics ie hip/knee replacement. Always look for full cover on these as 60% cover means after a few days in hospital or and an operation you could have to pay a further few thousand of a bill. Paying a small amount more can avoid this extra cost if you need to avail of a certain operations or a stay in hospital.

In regards to a private room in a public hospital there are very few private rooms in public hospitals and these are normally used for very sick patients.

In a private hospital you might see full cover for semi private room and an excess of 100/200 per night for a private room in a private hospital.

To keep costs down you can offer to pay an excess ie you might see ie flex 500/300 ect this generally means you will pay euro 500/300 towards your hospital stay if you spend a night or several nights in a private hospital. You will also see a day case -thats when your in hospital for a few hours due to tests and you can pay an excess towards this also to keep costs down ie 100/150 excess.

One of my friends had tests on a day case in a private hospital. The hospital cost was over 700 for the day and the tests were apox 450. They had to pay 150 towards this. I know my friend would be waiting a long time in a public hospital for the same. They decided to pay an excess to keep the cost of their policy down.

Some policies will offer limited cover in the high tech hospital's for certain health issues ie caridic - stents/bypass, special procedures or day cases. They might specific cardiac cover in mater private, no cover blackrock.

In regards to day to day expenses not all policies cover these so see the earlier advice given on how to see these policies. If you want day to day cover look for a policy with a 1 euro excess and then look at what the policy covers after this as some policies will give you a certain amount ie 100/300 towards optical, doctors, consultant visit, dental ect and some policies will pay 50% or 75% of costs with a maximum amount per year.
Also you can claim tax back on medical and dental bills with the med one and med two forms from revenue if you don't have this as part of your policy.

Also if for example you pay 600 for dental treatment and your policy allows you to claim 100 for this, after the health insurance gives you 100 back you then then get tax back on the remaining 500 not covered by your health insurance policy by filling out a med one or two form.

You mentioned that you don't have kids. If you plan to have a family you need to have health insurance for a minimum of 12 months before you can claim for private maternity care. No health insurance policy will pay all the costs in full for this but they allow a certain amount for each part of the cost. Anything above what they allow you will have to pay but you can claim tax back on this cost.
My advice is if you get health insurance and you want to go private contact the insurance company to see what your covered for on the particular policy you have and they should be able to give an idea of the costs so you can decide then if you want to go private or public.
If you go as a public patient for having a baby in Ireland their is no cost for this.

I know that laya have a number of good policies from around 700 to 1300 a year. The higher cost ones can have one or more of the following, a lower excess for a day case or over night/nights stay, cover more public or private hospitals, have slightly more cover in the high tech hospital's and can in some cases cover day to day medical expenses.

I have worked in this area in the past so I hope the above helps you out. If you have any questions post them here and I will try to answer them.