Just had my quote for the next year, and at € 1,563 it seems a bit steep to me.
It was € 1,422 last year, as far as I know it covers everything and I am now 82 but do not have heavy claims on them each year and the only thing they pay for is a daily pill I take to prevent acid build up in my stomach that would otherwise cause reflux.
For the first time ever, I tried a comparison site and the cheapest they offered was € 744. MGC I think, but that seems suspiciously low to me, it is very many years, at least 5, since I paid anywhere near that.
Oh forgot to mention that they contributed € 300 to my, now lost, hearing aids. Could that have something to do with it?
Yes, and don’t know. It just seems such a leap in one year, an increase of €141, I have no idea how much those little pills cost but the only other things they paid for are one blood test and that small contribution to the hearing aids. It is only the worry that I don’t know what’s around the corner that stops me from reducing it to whatever the minimum is allowed.
I suggest you click on the button top left of your screen “insurance” and get a quote from Fabien.
Getting a quote from him will not open you up to hundreds of marketing calls, and should be clear about options for the level of cover you want. The important thing is to have adequate hospital cover.
You little pill probably cost a few € a month. They are as cheap as chips. And blood test are between €59 and €150 usually.
Seems to me an annual increase of €141 is probably not so unusual. Prices generally rise year on year. That’s €11.75 per month more for getting exactly the same cover you have had until now. The risk of taking a substantially lower plan would be having substantially less covered.
I second Janes’s suggestion. May be a good time to consult with @fabien ?
Because of the drops in the percentage reimbursements (from 70 - 65% in many cases) average increases of 10% in mutuelles were predicted this year. And this is roughly what has happened here.
Definitely shop around - insurance companies see repeat customers as cash cows and often hike rates while giving good offers to newbies to attract their business.
OK this is UK not France, but my mother’s house insurance was going to go up by 50% this year if we had renewed it; I did the meerkat comparing thing and got her equivalent cover for less than she paid last year, and with a reputable insurer not Arthur Daley Assurance Inc.
Absolutely. They know nobody (well, almost nobody) enjoys shopping for insurance, so they purposely bump rates assuming that you won’t want to go through the mess again. Just got my first car insurance renewal and the rate went up about 15%. What is my time worth to maybe save 50 euros?
In the case of mutuelles, though, it seems obvious that as you near “checkout” age, the mutuelles will likely be paying a lot more each year, and it isn’t just inflation or the government paying less.
This is true, but it’s still worth shopping around! My mother used to have private health cover with Saga, which got to be really expensive as time went on (she is now 99!)
A couple of years ago I put the problem to an insurance broker friend of mine, expecting the answer “sorry, she’s too old, nobody will take her on”.
He got her cover with BUPA with better cover for half the premium she had been paying.
Well, I had a massive senior moment in my first post in thinking that the increase was €1,041 when in fact it was €141 (thank you @Susannah) and all of you were too polite to mention it but it is too late now, I have done the edit.
I will ring the office tomorrow as they are nice people and all speak very good English, the founder was English and only last year retired, if only to find out what I would lose cover wise if they found a way to reduce it.
Who is this MGC lot who quote €744, there must be a very good reason for the cheapity. Isn’t there?
And I’ll send a message to @fabien who I almost met in Bordeaux last year, but he was at the other end of the table.
Purely for comparison, our AXA annual private medical cover (ie not a top-up mutuelle) went up 15% from 2023 to 2024, irrespective of any claims made (2751-3212€).
I take it that you are urging me not to delay as I am getting accident prone, and you may have a point. I am getting a proper devis with everything that’s covered on the half priced quote later and I will be talking to Axa as well to see what’s covered and what is covered and what I could risk dropping, if anything. But one way and another I will not have a break in cover on Feb 1st.
I think it’s the eyes, ears and teeth that ‘load’ mutuelles. We (M79, F76) pay €141/month but are going to reduce mutuelles to just hosp. cover … we have just had specs, hearing … so hopefully no expense there for 3 years or so
No, because I didn’t tell the health insurer, but there is certainly a link between the wetting and the decision to go ahead and but see what a reduction might exclude.
@lebeuil1 Although Axa contributed just €300 of the almost €4,000 for my hearing aids, all they have had to pay for over several years are the little pills I take daily against reflux which I think is about €90/year.
Getting on for 10 years I reckon, and maybe on a previous insurer, since I had 2 major operations within a week (the 2nd one to correct problems with the 1st) for an enlarged prostate. Apart from the specialist’s fees, about €150 which I paid but may have claimed back, the astronomical cost to me was nothing. So that is something I would not want to lose. Specs and hearing aids are minor in comparison and would not trouble me to lose.
So is everything, apart from €20 a day, covered with just hospital cover?
If so, and the difference was worthwhile, I would go for it.
David, our insurance agency (GAN) now covers all our insurance needs (house/car/tractor/health). We have been with them since coming to France and the useful thing is that the lady speaks perfect English. Last year we had an email from her saying she had compared our health insurance (FFA) with one her company offered and it worked out much cheaper for the same (and in some cases, better) cover. Our present health quote for Stuart and myself is around 2,775€ pa. If you have a GAN agency in a town near you, it may be worth while contacting them. We get a discount for having multi policies with them.
