New health insurer launching this week

This was reported by the Sunday Times back in April; seems to have taken longer to launch than it suggested then, or perhaps they were just waiting to do so when most renewals come up, in December/ January.

Will be interesting to see if they can stick to 4 plans.

They'll have to be competitive to gain traction quickly to get the required scale.

I know there is equality legislation at play here, but I too am baffled how they have to offer maternity benefits to biological males.

Anything that simplifies it and introduces value into the mix is a good thing.

I don't think that including maternity as a universal benefit makes much difference to what men have to pay. According to the 2022 census, there was 2,604,590 females in the state and the number of people aged under 12 months by age was 57,796. Meaning that there is one toddler under the age of 1 for every 45 women in the country.

Obviously more than one woman in 45 in the state is a mother, I'm just highlighting how many women would have required maternity cover in the previous 12 months.

Throw 2,544,549 men into the mix and there is one toddler i.e. one birth in the past 12 months for every 89 of the population.

They seem to have levelhealth.ie but it's not live yet, rather poor for a launch day.

I got an email and a text today from my current provider informing me of all the services they offer, a coincidence I wonder 🤔

Site is up and running.

Website looks very basic at this stage.

I've had a good look through the finer details of which hospitals and cover is included, and it looks like they've come up with a good offering.

They've subdivided Plan B into various excess levels and Plans B and C into with and without day to day cover and other insurers would give each of these a different name. But it looks like they've done their homework.

We'll make significant savings by moving unless out current insurer comes back with a much better renewal premium before the end of the month.

I'll say the opposite.

Website is clean and clear. 4 plans - not 400. Very very easy to navigate and find out every iota of information with a couple of click

Look at laya - 4 clicks just to get past the "cookie acceptance", Then click to say you want a quote, then click to close the pop up, the more and more and more clicks before they give you a quote - if you haven't given up at that point.

Give me the simple easy layout of level health over the cumbersome laya or vhi site ANY day of the week.

Even the document giving all the details of the plan is exceptionally easy to read and understand - compare that to vhi which is unbelievably complicated.

A very refreshing uncomplicated website

Well I signed up for their most basic plan yesterday, or at least I think I have. Opted to pay monthly but they won’t take the first payment until the start of next month.
As I’ve been insured previously, I tried to upload a document to the “proof of previous insurance” but I’ve no idea if it uploaded successfully or not.
They also offer 50% off Aviva home insurance if you sign up, and with my home renewel due at the end of the month, this was another reason to sign up with Level Health. They emailed me my discount code but lo and behold when I enter it at the Aviva site, I get an error saying “this site has been accessed incorrectly, please use the links provided”…..

I hope I haven’t been scammed. The Level website looks very sparse like those fake websites, but given the press coverage they have received they surely can’t be fake?

I have a plan with Laya that's currently roughly equivalent to Plan B. It has gone up from about €850 last December to nearly €1100 from this December. Level Health's is €938, but without the 10% discount which they say will be removed after 1 December (but could be earlier or later). It's not that much different.

My wife has a plan with Laya roughly equivalent to a Plan C that's a lot more, so that's definitely worth switching.

My guess is that the the incumbents will either adopt a "wait and see" approach and look in January how their December renewals have been affected, or they could adopt a simple discount approach on certain plans that most closely match Level Health's, and direct customers who ring up and complain to those plans.

Over the next year I'd also expect the incumbents to retire older plans and simplify their offering. It's fine if all your competitors are offering 100 different plans each, but if one isn't, it gives them a competitive advantage.

I just had a look at the VHI, they had plan B until 2024 some people are really stupid with their money or else its fear of change

On some radio program vox pop one interviewed more or less said health insurance isn't as good to as it use to be as too many people have it!! another said i'd never change from the VHI.

They know what they are doing claims for everyday expenses have shot up.

Plans use to never cover everyday expenses.

It's a case of going through the plans carefully and comparing.