Below is an Annual Subscription from the 22nd of September 1987 from VHI to a customer for Plan B for 2 adults and 2 children. The annual premium for the plan on that date was IRL£395.04. This would traslate to €501.60.

VHI subscription from 1987

The average industrial wage in Ireland in 1987 was about €10,048 which would mean that the cost of the cover was about 3.9% of income.

Today the average industrial wage is approximately €43,101 and the cost of Plan B for 2 adults and 2 children has increased to €4,131.20 which amounts to almost 9.6% of ones salary to pay for this cover today. This is over 146% increase in real terms which would suggest a huge problem with the health Insurance system, if one was to look no further.

However using the above example to suggest that the cost of health cover has increased by 146% over the last 27 years is disingenuous.  30 years ago there were no more that 5 consumer plans in the market, VHI’s Plans A, B, C, D & E.  Today there are over 260 plans available from 4 insurers. There are many reasons that a particular plan would see an increase of one percentage or another but no plan in isolation could incapsulate the average market increase over any fixed period of time, particularly a 27 year one.

The correct analysis would be to see whether 2 adults and 2 children could expect to get the same or largely similar level of cover today for a similar cost, and here are the findings:

A similar level of cover is currently available in the market (with VHI indeed) at a cost of €2,235.38 for 2 adults and 2 children which would represent just under 5.2% of the current average industrial wage.  This would represent an increase of 32% in real tems which while still a large increase, is no way indicative of the type of hype we’ve been fed over the past 2 years.