The cost of employee healthcare is a big issue and is something that will remain an ongoing budgeting challenge for employers into 2016, this according to experts at totalhealthcover.ie.
The health insurance experts say that due to the introduction of Lifetime Community Rating (LCR) in May 2015 employers’ costs could rise even further.
Under the new measure, all new health insurance members aged over 34 will have to pay a loading of 2% for every year over this. For example, a 39 year old will pay 10% more whereas a 44 year old will pay 20% extra for their insurance.
Totalhealthcover.ie have advised businesses who have a corporate plan in place at present to make sure they are getting their full 10% discount as this is completely at the discretion of the insurer.
They have also advised businesses to ask for their lowest cost equivalent plan to what they have already and insist that they consider all their plans as part of this exercise.
Health insurance analyst with www.totalhealthcover.ie, Dermot Goode explained, "It’s estimated that 50% of all health insurance members are through group schemes and nearly 40% of these or 400,000 members receive a subsidy from their employer.
"Medical inflation is averaging 5-8% so employers who fund the cost of healthcare are faced with ongoing increases in their healthcare budgets. But even in the midst of these increases many employers, especially small businesses are missing out on the latest deals and are therefore overpaying for their cover."
Source: www.businessworld.ie