The insurer is hiking its prices for the third time in just one year.
Laya Healthcare, one of the county’s main health insurers, is to hike its prices yet again.
It’s increasing premiums by an average of 6.6% across its plans from 1st April and follows two additional increases by the insurer last year.
It means many families who renew their plans over the coming weeks could be faced with a premium hike of up to €500 or more.
As is now familiar, the insurer is blaming an increase in both the number of claims as well as the cost of claims for the need to hike premiums.
For example, Laya said its overall claim costs have risen by 29% over the past two years, with demand growing significantly across private and high-tech hospitals for cardiology, orthopaedic, ophthalmic and cancer services.
Laya also noted that long waiting lists and overcrowding in the public health system are pushing more policyholders to choose private and hi-tech hospitals for their health needs, driving up costs unsustainably for the insurer.
It had been hoped that Laya’s takeover by Axa in 2023 might lead to lower premiums, but that certainly hasn’t happened as Laya has announced several premium hikes since. The entry of new insurer Level Health into the market hasn’t helped to keep premiums under control either, though we at bonkers.ie flagged this was likely to be the case.
Our priority is to deliver fast access to healthcare across urgent care, diagnostic scans, prevention screenings and high-cost drugs but the challenge we face is that healthcare is costing more to deliver today than ever before in the history of the State and the issue is being compounded with demand at an all-time high
D.O. O'Connor, Managing Director of Laya Healthcare
Recent health insurer price hikes
| Insurer | VHI | Laya | Irish Life |
| 2025 | 3.00% | 6.60% | 3.70% |
| 2024 | 3.50% | 6.50% | N/A |
| 2024 | 7.00% | 7.00% | 5.30% |
| 2023 | 7.00% | 3.00% | 5.00% |
| 2023 | 4.80% | 4.40% | 4.80% |
What can you do to combat health insurance hikes?
Increase your excess
An excess is the amount you pay first in the event of a claim.
Increasing your excess by even a few hundred euro can knock a sizeable chunk off your premium.
Review your cover and benefits
Make sure you’re not paying for benefits or cover that you don’t need.
Consider lowering your level of cover or removing it altogether in certain instances.
Go on different plans
If you’re a family, not everyone needs to be under the same single plan. Sometimes you can save money by putting different family members onto different plans based on their own individual health needs.
Ask about corporate plans
By law, corporate plans for large companies, which are generally the best value, must be available to everyone. However they are unlikely to be marketed or sold directly to individual policyholders unless you specifically ask about them.
Shop around
Don’t just renew - remember to review
There are still potential savings to be made by shopping around come renewal time. And in some cases you could even end up with better cover too. So don’t just accept the price hike when your renewal letter comes in the post.
For example the most up-to-date plans will provide cover towards things such as the HPV vaccine, online doctors, genetic testing, sports-related injuries, home birthing, gender reassignment, and psychiatric and mental health treatment, which older plans may not.
And if you switch insurer you won’t have to serve any waiting periods again – as long as you switch within 13 weeks. This is not known by some people and is a barrier to switching. And if you switch insurers while you are serving a new customer waiting period, the amount of time served with your first insurer will be taken into account with your new insurer.
And regardless of your current health or claims history, any new insurer must take you on - by law they cannot restrict you from cover. Unlike other forms of insurance, your previous claims record or age has no bearing on the price you pay or the options available to you.
Save money on your health insurance with bonkers.ie
You can now buy health insurance easily with bonkers.ie.
Just answer a few simple questions such as:
- When you want your policy to start
- The number of people you want covered
- The level of cover you want
- The excess you want to pay as well as whether you want additional benefits such as refunds on things like GP visits
Then fill in some personal details for a quote and see if we can save you some money.
