Health insurance company VHI has said it will waive a portion of premiums for its health insurance policy holders, due to lower than forecast claims levels this year as a result of Covid-19.
All policyholders will benefit from a waiver of premium to the value of €75 for every adult insured and €25 for each child insured.
Payments will begin in the last week in January and policyholders will have the money paid directly to their bank account or by cheque.
VHI says that the average family of two adults and two children will receive €200 back.
Earlier this year, VHI waived a portion of premium by an average of 50% for a three-month period, due to the restricted access customers had to private hospitals as a result of an agreement between the State and the Private Hospitals Association.
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Meanwhile, the chair of the British Medical Association in Northern Ireland has expressed concern about the easing of Covid-19 restrictions there this Friday, following a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Dr Tom Black, a GP based in Derry, said there have been over 2,700 new cases of infection in the last seven days, more than 600 of which were in people over the age of 60.
Northern Ireland has reached a plateau, he said, but there are still a lot of patients in hospital and in Intensive Care units, and hospitals are working at over 100-percent capacity.
“We’re going to be open for at least 16 days until the 27th of December,” Dr Black said.
“It looks like the numbers will increase as a result of that easing of restrictions and we’re going to probably go into another lockdown within the first three weeks of January”.
He said the “big worry” from a health service point of view is the number of hospitals that run a risk of being overwhelmed during that early part of the new year.
Health insurance company VHI has said it will waive a portion of premiums for its health insurance policy holders, due to lower than forecast claims levels this year as a result of Covid-19.
