BUPA Ireland has relaunched its healthcare plans, and in accordance with Government regulations has designed them all to be community rated, that is, the same price regardless of age.

Originally BUPA offered a single basic health plan, "Essential", for which every subscriber paid the same amount. Essential offered semi-private accommodation in all participating public hospitals and private accommodation in some, as well as full heart surgery and cancer care coverage in the two private hospitals, the Blackrock Clinic and Mater Private.

There were a wide range of out-patient benefits, many of which exceeded those offered by VHI, and there was a guarantee of no balance billing from consultants.

In addition to the basic Essential plan was a range of cash plans which purchased the level of accommodation you wished for from a range of private hospitals, but the cost of these plans depended on your age.

The cash plans are now gone and in their place are two more community rated schemes - Essential Plus which is designed to compete against VHI plans B, C and D and Essential Gold, which is an even higher benefit and cost plan than VHI's plan E.

The basic Essential scheme is virtually unchanged except for the addition of a few more benefits such as full cover for a breast prosthesis after breast surgery (worth about £100) and prostate cancer screening for men and a discount price for health and life-styles screening. The pre-tax relief cost for an adult is £172.27 and £55.60 for a child, compared to approximately £183 and £61 respectively for VHI. Ten per cent discounts apply for group rates. A £200 excess applies for an individual and £375 for a family.

The Essential Plus scheme costs just £238.93 per year for an adult and £83.33 per child with the family excess reduced to £350. But while these rates are quite a bit less than the VHI plans, BUPA has built in an automatic £50 excess for each claim for private hospital inpatient or day admission. Rates are higher if you decide to waive the excess which is not charged on any other outpatient benefits.

The Plus scheme offers all the treatments available under the Essential plan but with the higher grade of accommodation in 72 rather than 63 hospitals, the lower family excess of £350 (£400 for VHI) plus a contribution of £15 towards the heart and lifestyles screening worth £70 and £15

towards speech therapy sessions.

The third scheme, Essential Gold is aimed at top income earners and costs £855.60 a year, more than £100 dearer than VHI plan E. But BUPA claims that the additional benefits, such as lower excesses of £175 per individual £300 for a family and free health screening, higher contributions towards consultants and other professional fees and no balance billing more than compensate for the higher BUPA cost.

VHI customers, or anyone currently without private health insurance and thinking about taking it out, need to consider all the pros and cons of the VHI scheme and the BUPA plans before making a decision. For example, in some cases VHI offers a longer period of cover than BUPA and its Plan B and C rates are very similar if the Essential Plus £50 excess is waived. Plan E is cheaper than BUPA Essential Gold but BUPA claims its main benefits especially its universal heart and cancer treatment, the higher consultant fee contributions, wider maternity cover, access to BUPA hospitals in Britain if treatment is not available here (part of all the BUPA schemes) and the pricing of students over 18 as children and not adults makes their product better value than VHI.

At least there are no disincentives to switching between schemes - BUPA will recognise any waiting periods already completed as a VHI customer and will instigate immediate cover when you join. Similarly, if you are part of a VHI group scheme at your place of work and wish to join BUPA as an individual they will charge you the group rate.

The one thing that no one should be under any illusion about is that BUPA's charges are not going to remain static, no more than the VHI's. At the launch of its new plans last week, BUPA's chief executive Martin O'Rourke told Family Money that there was no getting away from the fact that the cost of health care was going to keep rising and that BUPA would have to remain competitive in the market. How high BUPA's rates go in the future against VHI's is something no one can predict.