Under 35s, are you taking out Health Insurance?

I cant afford Health Insurance I have several bills to pay aswell as a mortgage.

Im lucky Im in good health.

Dont forget there are people in this country who are entitled to a medical card and have never worked or paid tax in this country.

Patww79 wrote: »

Be careful if you have had a company paid policy with this penalty too. If you change job and have to take out your own you'll still get stung as if you never had cover.

This isn't true.

Having a policy under a corporate scheme works exactly the same as if you'd bought it privately.

If you're under a corporate scheme, and then subsequently leave the company, you can always just take out your own policy straight after. It will not be as if you "never had cover".

The only thing to keep in mind is that you should not have a break in cover of more than 13 weeks (you will lose your waiting periods if this happens), but this is always the case with health insurance.

I was on my parents health insurance till I turned 23.
Had a year in the UK where there was free health care for under 25s, came home and took out private health insurance and have had it ever since.
Started off as €42 a month in September 07 and 18 months ago, the same comaonyntried to charge me €98 a month for the same package.

Changed to Glo Health and now pay €63 a month and get free options of optical, Physio and worldwide travel insurance.

It's a necessary evil.

I had a procedure done in 2007 done privately that I thought I was covered for.
Got it done in a privet hospital on their list. All appeared grand.
Billed them for the procedure and they sent it back claiming to to be a "pre existing" condition as I had a break in cover while I had free health care in the UK.

Ended up costing me €2000.
Will always have health insurance after being burned like that

purplecow1977 wrote: »

Thanks all for the replies. I gave it some consideration back in April when the new rule about over 35s came in, but I had gone off the idea then. I hate paying for things 'I may not need' yet I'd always get travel/car insurance etc so what's different about health insurance? It's probably more important than either of those 2 things! I'm relatively healthy, no underlying issues etc but I guess you never know. I had a look at a health insurance comparison site but there didn't seem to be a great difference between some of the lower <€600 plans. Will I need to be paying more than this in order to get anything 'decent'?

Also, is there a clause where you have to be paying for a certain length of time before you claim?

Thanks for the information so far, it's a start!

It all depends on the plan you get. Health insurance companies don't advertise their best plans. The plan I'm on isn't even on the health insurers website. My plan is just over €1,000 and has all the bells and whistles.

The best website to compare plans is hia.ie

Some health insurance companies will wipe any waiting periods for new customers (except for pre existing conditions).

If you want I can pm you the plan I'm on.

Patww79 wrote: »

I overlapped the two and still got penalised.

Could you not have just taken over your corporate one rather than setting up a new account?

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Hmm that's odd.

That said, if you had upgraded your cover when you got your own policy, you would have had to wait 2 years (assuming you're under 55) to avail of the higher level of cover for pre-existing conditions.

Also some corporate schemes waive waiting periods (in some cases, all waiting periods), so a pre-existing condition you may have had cover for under the company plan may end up not being covered on your private policy (as 'normal' waiting periods would now apply to you).