Mr. John O'Dwyer:

We concur with Mr. Dónal Clancy in that we have no difficulty with age and entry being a good incentive to bring young people into the market. Clearly, the Government’s long-term objective is UHI. If that happens in the next four years, it will present a dilemma for us. How the UHI model is designed is still up for discussion but one could exclude smokers or overweight people. However, to the best of my knowledge this is not the case in other countries. I am open to correction but it is the lower economic groupings that are predominantly smokers and overweight. I personally do not have a difficulty if it were the case to exclude them. However, this would be disadvantaging the lower members of our society.

VHI pays 80% of the claims in the market. We have a 48 hour turnaround and never delay claims in any way. Our claims department is fully accredited with ISO standards. In cases where some hospitals found it difficult on the administration side, we gave them advances.