Cool stuff you can get for free on your health cover

Thinking of getting a new health insurance plan? Over a million people renew their cover in the first three months of the year.  Here are 10 cool and potentially life-saving or life-changing things covered by your health insurance you may not know about

Egg freezing in a fertility clinic, hampers for new mums and money back for fitbits and gym membership…

These are just some of the health insurance goodies “going abegging” because people don’t know about them.

Most are available through good corporate health plans (see panel). Some come with certain plans targeted at parents. But many are also free on even cheap health insurance policies

Corporate plans are the best value plans with all the 'bells and whistles' because they are bought in bulk by companies and all insurers try to win this valuable business.

But they have to sell them to everyone – if you ask. 

“You could pay €1250 for a good corporate plan or you could be playing €2300 with  get nothing back on routine medical expenses,” said health insurance expert Dermot Goode of www.totalhealthcover.ie.

Here Dermot below helps us to pick out the most valuable and unusual health cover benefits:

Personalised packages Irish Life can tailor health insurance packages to suit your needs on its 4D range of plans. “You may for example, want better maternity cover, or sports cover or fertilty cover, or cover best suited for children. You can pick which benefits suit you best,” says Dermot.

Parenthood 

When you do have your baby, there are a wealth of benefits for maternity cover on certain plans. The VHI Smart Plan Family, for example, provides 10 meal packs for new mums, while Irish Life’s maternity extra package to be added to 4D plans provides birth partner expenses, yoga and pilates classes, baby massage and parent first aid classes. You could also get, if you pay for the feature, a hamper with five day’s supply of lunches, dinners and snacks on certain plans.

“There are so many benefits now on good corporate plans that people can’t keep track of them and don’t claim,” says Dermot. They will fund birthing partners, first aid classes for parents, online supports When Dermot Goode started working in health insurance, anything to do with fertilty treatment was excluded from all plans. That has completely changed.

All insurers want younger customers who are less likely to have health issues and target parents and would be parents with loads of extras.

Not only are fertility treatments covered – many plans, such as the ones in our panel, provide cover for ‘freezing” eggs for women who aren’t ready to have a baby.

Cardiac check up

This is one of the most important health insurance perks. It literally could save your life.

The number of people who are literally a “a stroke or a heart attack waiting to happen” is frightening.

Age, family history, high cholestrol and high blood sugar levels are key indicators that probably affect most of us. You don’t need to have all of these factors to be at risk – just any one of them!

Our heart does a lot of work – it pumps over a million times a week – or over three billion times by the time you are in your late fifties. Any blockage anywhere in the 120,000km  of blood vessels can cause a stroke. A blockage of a 3mm coronary artery can cause a heart attack. For most of human existence the biggest threat to our lives were wounds and injuries. And so our blood is designed to clot easily. Nor are we designed to live very long, so our blood vessels deteriorate with age. Add into this lethal mix our modern diet full of fats that block our blood vessels and sugars that corrode them. It’s hardly surprising that the number one cause of human death is heart disease.

Strokes and heart attacks are by definition sudden. There is little warning. This is why free checks like Laya’s Heart Beat screening is so important. Laya provides a full cardiac check up for every member once every two years. 

Most insurers have some form of cardiac screening. All will also provide at least some contribution towards genetic testing for cancer risk.

Health coach

Another Laya benefit worth having is health coach. You get access to a personal trainer once every two years. He or she will draw up a plan and keep in touch to egg you on via an app.  It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but “some people who use it find it brilliant,” says Dermot.

Irish Life also provides money back on gym membership and fitbits on certain plans.

Care in the home

Another benefit that most people don’t seem to be aware of, according to Dermot. Laya and Irish Life have similar benefits but VHI was the first  to introduce it extensively.

“Let’s say you have cellulitis and need treatment. You could go into hospital to intravenous drugs. But most people would prefer treatment at home. If you get approved, the insurer will send you a home nurse to take care of you at home.

Counselling

The stigma about seeking help for mental health issues is thankfully fading fast. Nowadays a lot of people seek counselling. You may just need a good chat with a professional counsellor to get through a difficult patch – or maybe you need legal, financial or career advice. All  insurers  include counselling on corporate plans via in-company Employee Assistance Programmes.

“But Laya were first to put this across all their plans,” says Dermot.  “You may have issues and a GP is not the right person to talk to. It could be related to stress, bullying, financial issues. If you need counseller and are on the right plan you get 24-hour access to a help line and up to 6 face to face sessions with counsellors. It’s 100 covered and confidenital.”

Back care 

If you’ve a serious back or neck problem, Irish Life policies include a special care package, says Dermot. Back-Up connects you directly with a Chartered Physiotherapist who acts as your ‘case manager’. He or she clinically assesses your problem, and then develops a treatment plan. This may be through an app based exercise programme, or could involve physiotherapy.  “Once approved, you get 8 physio visits for €50 approved,” says Dermot Goode. For physio expenses, he also recommends a “good corporate plan” with any insurer, which wil give you 50% to 70% back on what you spend on physio. 

Emergency medical cover abroad

A lot of older people can’t buy afford to buy multi trip travel cover when travelling. They only get it on on trip by trip basis and it can be “very expensive,” says Dermot.  What many people don’t seem to realise is that they have between €65-€100k worth of emergency medical cover abroad on most health plans.

“In the US or canada it’s not good enough. But for a few days or a week in Europe it’s certainly worth having if you are priced out of the market for travel cover and have a European Health Insurance Card (which entitles all EU citizens to cover in every country free). It’s not a substitue for health cover but if you can’t afford that or most insurers won’t quote you after you turn 80 75, it’s worth having.”

Snap and send

In the old days, you’d claim for health insurance expenses at the end of the year. What a pain!

Receipts would inevitably go missing or be forgotten about. Nowadays every health insurer has a ‘snap and send’ faciltiy usually via an app that works a treat, I can personally attest. Open the app, snap a pic, enter a total and select a category. That’s it.  The money appears in your bank account as early as the next day. Just do it. There is no other way to go.

Nurse/GP/video services

All the insurers offer under these services under various names: Digital doc, GP live. You may get unlimited access to nurseline and a certain number of GP live visits every year. It’s not suitable for everything but if it does suit your ailment it’s a lot handier than going to a doctor –when you can get an appointment  - and waiting around in a germ-filled GP waiting room.

When choosing health cover, make sure to check that it suits your particular needs. Talk to your health insurer, a financial advisor and compare plans on www.hia.ie and www.totalhealthcover.ie.