Age Discrimination From Health Insurance Companies?

Last month Health Insurance News looked at the very large premiums that older people have to pay in order to obtain private medical insurance. This week the Telegraph reported that people are speaking up about the unfairness of this situation.

Director General of Age Concern, Gordon Lisham said that insurers offer 'unreasonable and disproportionate hikes in premiums that appear to be unrelated to any increase in underlying risk.' As reported in Health Insurance News some people over 80 are not even covered at all by some medical insurance companies. According to Mr Lisham three quarters of medical insurance providers will not cover people over the age of 70.

The industry however suggests that the reasons that premiums are higher, in particular for people over 70 is because they do have a much higher risk of ill health and that the premiums need to reflect this. Malcolm Tarling, from the Association of British Insurers comments that, "age is obviously relevant when it comes to the amount of claims people will make."

Women also make more health claims than men by as much as 80% in some age categories but the premiums do not reflect this risk. Women do pay a little more for their health insurance with some companies but the risk seems to be spread across the age ranges. Most companies who do vary their rates only charge women an average of 5% more for their premiums across all age groups. So why does this not happen in relation to age?

The fact of the matter is that this would probably affect insurers adversely as premiums would have to increase considerably across the board and the average person might be put off buying private medical insurance. As the years move on and the ageing population increases premiums would have to increase further to reflect this. Still, if insurance is there to cover us in times of need it seems a shame that those potentially most in need are not able to afford the premiums or even able to get the cover. In fact as the ageing polulation increases this is an issue which health insurance companies will need to tackle.