Your Price Explained | Irish Life Health

Your Price Explained


At Irish Life Health we understand that health insurance can be very confusing. The amount you pay can be affected by a number of factors which we have explained below. There are certain discounts or loadings that may be added to your premium and these are shown on your member certificate, which you receive when you take out your policy. 

Health Insurance Levy

The Government charges health insurers a Health Insurance Levy for every member that takes out a health insurance policy. The levy may change each year as part of the Government's annual budget.

The levy forms a set amount of your health insurance premium. For example, if you are an Adult and your premium is €1,200 each year on a Level 2 plan, €399 of that premium is your Health Insurance Levy. That is about 1/3 of your total premium. 

The levy is used to fund the Risk Equalisation Premium Credit that applies to insured persons over 60.

Risk Equalisation Premium Credit

This is a payment to health insurers from the Risk Equalisation Fund which is managed by the Health Insurance Authority (HIA). The Risk Equalisation Premium Credit is paid from this fund to health insurance companies for people over 60 to help meet their higher claims costs.  The amount of the payment varies by age, sex of the member and the level of cover.

Group Discount

Health Insurance Plans may have a discretionary discount applied. This can vary between 0% - 10%. This is generally only applied on group schemes where multiple members are insured together. This dicount may already be applied to your premium. 

Under Community Rating legislation we cannot offer any other discounts to specific groups of people based on their age, sex or health status.

Lifetime Community Rating Loadings

Lifetime community rating is a system whereby the premium that individuals pay for health insurance reflects the age at which they take out private health insurance. Late entry loadings are applied to the premiums of those who join the health insurance market at age 35 or over. 

If you are purchasing a private health insurance policy for the first time at age 35 years or older you may pay a 2% loading on top of your premium for every year you are aged over 34 up to a maximum of 70%. 

Your Tax Relief

This is a tax credit given by the Government to ease the financial burden of private health insurance for you.  As your health insurance company, we deduct your tax relief from your premium so you don’t have to claim it back from the Revenue Commissioners.