VHI'S finance director said yesterday the company was trading at a profit and if that trend continued, it would report a surplus for the year ending in February.
Referring in an RTE radio interview to a report that the company was moving into a loss making situation, Mr John Looney said that report was prepared last June for a July board meeting. It was against a background of the VHI not having reached agreement with the private hospitals and a forecast that there might be a run on claims. The report was outdated by events in the meantime.
"We are very much in the black and expect to remain so for this year," said Mr Looney.
Subscription income had increased. "We are now recruiting more than 1,000 members a week," he said. Membership was up to 1.4 million which would provide extra earned income in the coming year. Investment income had increased ahead of budget and claims costs were not as high as expected.
The company was modifying its projections all the time. It had no plans for a price increase at this time. Developments in the marketplace would be monitored closely. "We will be doing our figures. We will have to monitor how claims run for the rest of the year and take all that into account to see if a price increase is necessary and if so at what level."
VHI would examine its products having seen the BUPA range. Only 10 per cent of VHI members took Plan A which was equivalent to BUPA's Essential Plan. If BUPA was allowed to have a plan which would discriminate against the elderly, that would leave that population to VHI "and that is not sustainable". There was a doubt about the legality of the BUPA products which was why VHI had raised the issue with the Department of Health.