irishlifehealth.ie Arvostelua 

Trying for almost a week to download the health insurance App. Wrote to the the IT Department twice, to no avail. Be careful if you're taking out health insurance with Irish Life Health. The customer care is abysmal once your hand over the money.

Digital doctor system is a shambles. Appointment
Time changes with no warning. Video link won’t work on the back of this. Irish life health will blame the doctors. The common denominator here is that it will always be someone else’s fault. The sooner the year policy is over the better and I will go back to Laya.i wish I could give zero stars.
They’ll come with the silly contact escalation reply to this. Just watch.

Systemic failures, unclear instructions and real risk of cancelled cover.

I am posting this review after a prolonged and deeply frustrating experience with Irish Life over an LCR charge on my policy. The way my case was handled demonstrates multiple operational and communication failures that put policyholders at real risk of losing cover.
Timeline (concise)
• 06/06/26: I received the first LCR letter with a cancellation deadline of 30/06/26.
• Subsequent emails: Irish Life emailed a breakdown and stated a total outstanding premium and payment options. The email explicitly says: “To make this payment you can set this up to be paid by monthly direct debit or by a once off payment.” and “The total outstanding premium is €XXXXXXX.”
• After further requests for clarification: I was asked to provide documents dating back eight years and Irish Life initiated a re rate process that they estimate will take 3–5 working days — a window that overlaps the cancellation deadline they themselves imposed.
What went wrong (evidence based)
• Timing conflict and process risk. Irish Life set a cancellation deadline that overlaps the stated 3–5 working day re rate window. This creates a real and avoidable risk that a legitimate re rating will not be completed before the policy is cancelled. No automatic extension or protective measure was offered proactively.
• Incorrect or untested payment instructions. The insurer’s email offers a monthly Direct Debit option, yet the online steps they provided do not allow me to set up monthly instalments without first paying the full amount. This contradiction prevents customers from following the insurer’s own stated payment option.
• Failure to answer specific questions point by point. I repeatedly asked for explicit clarifications (exact amount, whether the amount is provisional pending re rate, step by step Direct Debit setup, cut off dates, and the worked calculation used to determine the LCR loading). Responses were generic and did not address each question directly.
• Lack of transparency. Despite requesting the worked calculation and supporting evidence used to determine the LCR loading, Irish Life did not provide the documentation or the detailed calculation needed to verify the charge.
• Operational friction and avoidable stress. The combination of imminent deadlines, unclear instructions, and slow/generic replies forced me to spend significant time chasing basic facts that should be provided proactively by an insurer.
Impact on policyholders This is not merely inconvenient: it is a process failure that can lead to interruption of cover, financial uncertainty, and unnecessary stress. Policyholders should not have to fear losing their health cover while a legitimate administrative review is underway.
What Irish Life must do immediately
1. Provide written confirmation that no cancellation or collection action will be taken while a re rate is in progress and automatically extend any deadline if the re rate is not completed by the stated cancellation date.
2. Fix and verify payment instructions: supply clear, tested, step by step Direct Debit instructions (or set up the instalment plan on the customer’s behalf), including the date of first collection and any cut off deadlines.
3. Supply the worked calculation and supporting evidence used to determine the LCR loading, including any employer or previous insurer data relied upon.
4. Answer questions point by point: respond to each numbered question with the corresponding numbered answer beneath it to avoid ambiguity.
Final assessment My experience shows systemic weaknesses in Irish Life’s customer communications and process controls. The insurer’s own email offers options that cannot be followed in practice, sets deadlines that conflict with its processing times, and fails to provide the transparency customers need to verify charges. Until Irish Life addresses these fundamental issues, I cannot recommend them for matters that affect continuity of cover.
If Irish Life wishes to respond publicly to this review, I welcome a clear, written reply that addresses each of the points above and provides the requested evidence and assurances.
Please note that I have been forced on them only due to the switch my employer made replacing Laya with them.

I took out a health policy yesterday. Set up my account on their website today and logged in (forced to use Microsoft service, against my will).
I'm logged in and the page asks if I'd like to become a member?
No contact email nor phone number on the home page and 'help' page is blank.
Rang the number I used yesterday to join and after 5 minutes of recordings, the human being refused to log complaint without interminable security questions, including the same question twice.
No indication anywhere of what to do if I want to query my policy or make a claim.

They won't answer the phone, and they definitely don't answer email. I have been trying to communicate with them for at least a week, but they have been scamming me. It is not possible to communicate with them.

I had Irish Life travel insurance (underwritten by Allianz) as part of my Health Insurance. I had an expensive holiday in Mexico planned in February this year but my sister sadly was diagnosed with brain cancer and I had to cancel. She passed away while I would have been travelling. Allianz were a dream to work with and refunded me the maximum possible under the policy (about 50% of my costs). My main travel policy was with Bonkers/Mawdy who were useless and paid me nothing (I will review them separately).

Very poor service. I am elderly and felt completely fobbed off today. I have never claimed,
I saw my payment has gone up 20% , no explanation,
She told me my contract rolled over in February, I am not tech savvy; so I was obligated to pay the extra fee for a year. Really upset about this. I can’t afford it.

Myself and my wife have been paying into this company for over three years. In the past eighteen months or so so I have had reason to visit health professionals,heart and other conditions, thankfully things are fine. I paid out slightly over ,€800 two years ago, nothing back from Irish life, just claim denied, despite they recommended these specialists. Got an email saying final claim was paid,I paid €200 for a ten minute appointment, they paid the heart specialist another €100 for the use of the room . Unbelievable.m
Then in November 25, I had an accident at home. Broke my shoulder and tore tendons. Went to their clinic for three visits, paid for two at reduced rate, final visit orthopaedic said I have two choices, surgery or physio therapy, obviously choose physio, asked could he recommend anyone, he asked where am I living, I answered and he just said lots of therapists out there, paid I think about €60 for that 5 minutes consultation and left.
Paid a further €490 in physio fees, submitted a claim, heard nothing so rang them to be informed they only cover physio on your back or neck...
Cancelled my subscription December 25. Take my chances on public health.
So disappointed with Irish life.

There live chat is so bad that it must be intentional.

No response on my query for 4 days, only to find out it never reached anyone.

Then I start a whole new chat today and it asks me a load of security questions even though Im already logged into my account.

Then once I reach a representative they tell me they are only able to assist me with "login issues" and before I can even respond they end our chat........ even though I accessed the chat from the admin of my logged in account..... why was I put through to a person who handles login issues?

Extremely unprofessional of them to instantly disconnect too.

Absolutely horrible experience with them. I barely claimed anything in 8 years since I'm with them, and now they won't pay more than 12 physiotherapy sessions, which only the first 2 are fully covered, and the rest of 10 they pay back only half. They're happy to take your money without giving anything back, but when you need them, they ef you up straight away.

I have a total of 5 claims spanning back as far as late Jan and none of which have been paid (even though they are showing online that they are.
3 times they cancelled my membership even though my premium has been paid, 3 x 1 hour long phone calls and 3 times I was told the matter has been sorted.
Member number 6095318. Middle of April now and not of my claims have come through. I would advise anyone to look elsewhere other this incompetent company.

As a recent customer having moved from previous insurer I was unfamiliar with the details of certain cover. I rang customer service twice to pre-check my cover in advance of a cardiac consultant referral. Firstly I was told my cover wasnt active as I hadnt supplied a statement of cover from previous insurer- I was never asked for this. When I got that sorted I was given two different stories on the level of claim I could make. Turns out neither were accurate. As a previous poster noted the devil in in the small print. My claim was rejected as I did not meet the criteria though at face value I expected at least €60 back. If their own agents dont understand their policies how is a customer supposed to? Come renewal time I will be changing provider.

28th March, 2025. I have spent the afternoon trying to upload 5 medical expense receipts.
I have excellent broadband coverage and also good mobile data. The upload of the five receipts was spooling for 2 hours with no successful upload completed.
I deleted two of the receipt claims to reduce the upload file size and it is still spooling the 3 claims for another 1 hour?
Can you please tell me what is going on with Irish Life's Network today.
RichardG

I am currently in a public hospital with a life threatening condition, that should be fairly routine to treat, and I do not see, when I need it the most, what benefits my expensive cover is bringing. The staff here are lovely, but they are under pressure. I have private health so as not to be deadly melting pot of the HSE.

Having been insured with them for many years and having an unusual amount of outpatient expenses this year, I thought I would claim some of that outlay back this year.
To my dismay and frustration I discovered buried in the small print lurk a lot of exclusions which contradict the “banner headline claims”.
To be specific : €60 back per consultant visit (subject to excess) turns out not to be what it suggests. The €60 / visit is the max allowed against the excess (which is €200) so it’s only on the fourth visit that you get anything back. So my last consultation was €280 for which I got €0 back.
Similarly I was happy to find I could recuperate some of the costs of my physiotherapy. Well no. To access that you have to find a physiotherapist that does house calls (I don’t know of any in this city) and it can only be within 3 weeks after a hospital discharge.
And so it goes on. After my third phone call to get further information I opted for the callback rather than listen to jingles and ads for 10 minutes. It says that way you don’t lose your place in the queue…2 hours later and I’m still waiting for the call.