Vivas, the health insurer backed by AIB and financier Dermot Desmond, has recruited more than 20,000 customers in its first trading year, according to its chief executive, Oliver Tattan.
Mr Tattan said yesterday that the company, which launched one year ago this week, has captured over 1 per cent of the market since it began trading.
On the basis of an average policy cost of €400, before a 7.5 per cent price rise this month, this means it had sales of over €8 million during its first 12 months.
Market sources say that Vivas's sales were slow initially, but that they began to pick up momentum after a few months.
A Health Insurance Authority (HIA) survey carried out in early summer estimated that the company's market share at that stage was 0.5 per cent, or 10,000 subscribers.
Mr Tattan said yesterday that sales were stronger in the second half of the year and were continuing to pick up.
The company sells its policies through AIB's retail network and through brokers. Mr Tattan said that it had been particularly successful with group scheme plans for small and medium-sized businesses, and in selling insurance to professional groups like nurses and teachers.
"We are going to target the larger multinationals and corporates," he said. "They've been very fair to us and a lot of them have invited us to tender along with the other players.
"But, to a certain extent, the multinationals are going to sit back and see if we can deliver in the marketplace. We've shown that we can do that, so we'll be trying to take it to them next year."
He also predicted that the Republic's health insurance market would continue to grow. "It's worth €1 billion now and we believe that it could be worth €2 billion in five years," he said.
However, he argued that it would remain unattractive to new players as long as the VHI, which has 80 per cent of the business, continued to dominate the market.
Because VHI is a statutory body, it does not have to maintain reserves in the same way as a normal insurance company and the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority does not regulate it.
Vivas has to maintain reserves and comes under the financial regulator's remit.
