Company that provides health insurance to foreign students challenges notice to stop selling its policy to some

By Ann O'Loughlin

A company providing bespoke health insurance cover for certain foreign students here is challenging a notice that it must stop selling the policy to those whose courses last more than one academic year, the High Court heard.

The Health Insurance Authority (HIA), which monitors the operation of health insurance businesses to ensure compliance with the law, says Chubb European Group plc must alternatively become a registered undertaking in the same way as other health insurers here must be.

That means Chubb would then be subject to laws requiring it to comply with risk equalisation which provides insurance companies cannot cherry pick healthier customers.

Chubb says it had been providing its "Medicover Student" policy for years before the HIA decided what it was doing was allegedly in breach of health insurance legislation. It says most of these students come here for courses much longer than one year.

The HIA issued an enforcement notice in March 2017 requiring Chubb to restrict the availability of that policy to non-European Economic Area (EEA) students attending courses of not more than one academic year's duration, or else become a registered undertaking.

Chubb wants the court to cancel the notice claiming, among other things, it had been offering the policy for more than 16 years before the HIA decided it was in breach of legislation.

The HIA opposes its application. It says Chubb is in contravention of the health insurance acts by selling the insurance on an unrestricted basis. It stresses the importance of discouraging health insurers from segmenting the market by offering coverage to the more healthy, including the young.

Opening Chubb's case, Paul Sreenan SC, said it is a condition of non-EEA students' visa that they must show the immigration authorities they have health insurance so that they will not be a burden on the State if they get sick or have an accident.

It is not possible for them to buy an Irish health insurance policy before they arrive because it is a requirement of doing so that they are "ordinarily resident" in Ireland.

Even if they went straight from the airport to a health insurers office and took out a policy, they would not be immediately insured because there is a 180-day waiting period before the policy comes into force, counsel said. This is disputed by the HIA, the court heard.

A central issue the court would have to consider is the meaning "ordinarily resident", he said What the HIA has done by issuing its determination had purported to define what "ordinary residence" in Ireland means when the Oireachtas had not done so because it had wanted that to be decided on a case by case basis, counsel said.

That was an inflexible rule and in breach of Chubb's constitutional rights, he said.

From around 2000, Chubb (formerly Ace European) had offered this policy and it was not until 2011 that the HIA first raised issues over it. There was correspondence with the HIA but nothing further happened until 2016 when the HIA wrote saying the policy did not comply with the legislation, counsel said.

A breach of the health insurance acts is a criminal offence and if in 2011 the HIA believed Chubb was committing an offence it behoved it to make it clear that this was so and that Chubb might be prosecuted. But it did not do so and Chubb continued to invest in its business, counsel said.

It was a very serious matter and the HIA signally failed to explain why this had happened.

The case continues before Ms Justice Tara Burns.