VHI health insurance prices to increase by up to 6%

The cost of health insurance for hundreds of thousands of VHI customers is to go up by an average of 3 per cent from the beginning of May.

The company insisted it had no alternative but to increase its prices and blamed the “rising cost of claims”.

It is the second price increase announced by the State’s largest private health insurer in the last six months. It rolled out an average price increase of 2 per cent last November.

While the average price increase has been put at 3 per cent, some plans offered by the VHI will go up by as much as 6 per cent although the company also pointed out that some of the lowest priced plans will not be affected and the price of other plans will fall slightly.

The price increases will begin to kick in at the beginning of May with individual customers expected to pay more from their next renewal date.

"We regret that it is necessary to increase prices," said the company's marketing director Declan Moran.

“The main factor driving today’s announcement is the rising costs of claims but the price increase is also necessary to allow VHI to continue to provide our customers with access to the very latest in healthcare such as emerging technologies, new treatments and high cost drugs.”

He said the company would continue to focus on “cost containment through targeted claims efficiency programmes, increased activity of our special claims investigation unit and the continued transition of procedures to lower cost medically appropriate settings.”