Health insurance market ‘lacks real competition’

WITH just two players left in the health insurance market there could be problems in generating real price competition, a consumer watchdog warned yesterday.

Irish Consumers’ Association chief executive, Dermott Jewell, feared that the situation would result in consumers not getting cheaper health insurance.

The consumer chief also had little sympathy for BUPA, pointing out that the British-based insurance body had entered the Irish market in the full and clear knowledge that they would have to pay into a risk equalisation fund.