Health insurance conundrum

Sir, – I got my health insurance renewal notice this week. The total premium for my wife and me had increased by 16 per cent over the prior year. My insurer announced two price increases during the year – the first averaging 4.8 per cent and the second averaging 9 per cent. Naturally I was interested to know why my increase was so much higher than the average.

I spoke with an official in the insurance company who wasn’t able to throw any light on this.

I have just come off a call with a more senior official. She explained that there are two people on the policy and therefore I had done well – the price had gone up only by 8 per cent each. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing so I repeated what she had said to make sure that I was hearing her properly. I was.

It’s a pity my four adult children aren’t still on my policy in which case the increase would have been less than 3 per cent for each of us. – Yours, etc,