Vhi Healthcare Arvostelua 

The experience with this insurer has been extremely negative. The company has consistently rejected claims and has failed to provide adequate support or responses when contacted. Based on this, choosing a different insurer would be strongly recommended.

I feel completely misled by VHI’s dental insurance. When getting a quote, there was no mention at all of a mandatory 12-month contract. I only discovered this when I tried to cancel and was told I was locked in for a full year.

Customer service offered no help or flexibility, even though this key term was never shown during the sign-up process. Now I’m stuck paying for a policy I never knowingly agreed to.

A very disappointing experience. Keep it in mind when you signing up for Dental insurance with them.

I attended the VHI 360 clinic in Galway today. I was in severe pain with a dislocated shoulder. Within an hour I had x rays taken and my shoulder relocated. As a VHI member the cost was low and the nurses, doctor, radiographer were fantastic. This is an excellent new service in Galway.

The online doctor is almost certainly useless for most things, I explained to my doctor the symptoms. Explained that a gp already ruled out what she described as the issue.

At least 20 minutes late as well, honestly save the time and just go to a gp or walk in doctor, this service is almost useless for anything outside of cold or sore throat.

Been with VHI for 1 year - both my wife and I. We purchased one of the best cover plans they have and were happy to pay the higher premium. Today we called in to review, to ensure the plan was still relevant. We were kept waiting for 15 minutes. When the lady did answer she was abrupt, rushed and spoke over me. When I asked her to slow down, she seemed to not enjoy the request. Not helpful and patronising.

I have had a very negative experience with VHI agents. I had cancelled my policy down before the cut-off date for my direct debit. This was not processed on the systen for 2 full working days which meant I was charged my full payment that month. I was then refused my refund as it wasnt a month since my cancellation. I asked for the refund to be sent to me via EFT into my bank account and an agent took all my details and told me id receive it within 5 working days. After multiple long phone calls with some people who didnt know anything about the cancellation or refund (1 agent in particular was looking at a wrong policy), I still had no joy and I still dont have my refund. I was informed by one of the customer service agents today that this payment will be refunded to me via cheque, although I requested it to be sent via EFT and had been told by agents that this money will be sent via EFT and they had my BIC and Iban details sent over to credit control. The communication is terrible amongst different teams. In this day and age why is it so hard to receive a refund back to your bank account and not via Cheque. VHI has been the worst health insurance I have ever dealt with.

VHI auto renewed a policy I had with a company I have since left. My premium increased to over 80 euro a month, and it was never helpful anyway so I decided to cancel within my 14 day cooling off period.

I called to cancel, and was told I would receive a cheque within 10 working days. I did not, so I called again to ask for a bank transfer instead, and was refused as the cheque was 'in transit' and was all done automatically by their system (can't understand the holdup if it's all automatic).

The cheque came for 20 euro NOT 80 euro, so I am still waiting on 60 euro. I called again and was on the phone for over 20 minutes and got no answer as to why I am not being refunded what I am legally entitled to. The operator said he would call me back instead of keeping me on hold. I have not received a callback after a week.

Very unsatisfied with all this hassle to get back my refund which I am entitled to by law. Will not be a returning customer and would recommend to avoid, they hardly give you back anything anyway for expenses.

Expensive. Limited coverage. Terrible doctor at the 360 clinic (of which there are only two in all of Dublin) who wouldn’t test my daughter’s horrible looking throat for strep or anything - prescribed steroids only. And just the excess for the five-minute urgent care appointment coat more than a GP visit. Appalling.

Two and a half hour wait at their 360 clinic with my mother, whereas Irish Life is approximately 15 minutes any time I've been there. I see why they don't call it swiftcare anymore. Money gouging every year for this level of 'service'.

Extremely dissatisfied after visiting Vhi Galway with a finger injury. The doctor took an xray and no definitive report. Just “oh it’s not clear but could be a fracture.” She made appointment for me to see orthopedist the following week. I thought oh great I’ll see a specialist but he was useless. Didn’t do a repeat xray. Refused to send me for mri. I’m seven weeks in constant pain even after splinting myself for 6 weeks and buddy strapping after that. He basically said that no point in further xray or mri. “It will eventually settle down”. It’s worse than when I first injured. Absolutely 0 stars if I could. Laya health care is so much better !!

I visited VHI 360 health Centre for the first time on Sunday afternoon due to swollen ankle, I was really impressed with the level of care I received, from the moment I arrived I felt reassured and well looked after I would like to thank both my triage nurse Esther and my doctor Gabrielle who had very calm and compassionate approach with me and I thank you for your efficiency and empathy
Regards Esther Dunne

If I could, I would give zero stars. VHI is a nightmare of an insurance company. Customer service? Nonexistent. It takes forever to reach anyone, and when you do, you feel like a nuisance rather than a valued customer. Bills are often wrong, reimbursements take months - if they ever arrive at all.

The insurance terms are written so confusingly that you basically need a law degree just to understand what you’re paying for. And don’t think you’re covered in an emergency - you’ll quickly learn otherwise. I have never experienced so much frustration for so much money.

In short: VHI is a masterclass in how to annoy customers and waste their money. Absolutely not recommended.

They are absolutely unorganized.

A payment did not go through. One day later I called them and paid manually on the phone. Two weeks later they again tried the direct debit what I could prevent.

Why did the employee on the phone process my payment even though she must have known that the system will try again? I received a receipt of my manual payment but they keep saying a payment was overdue. I called again but nobody could help.

Finally, after cancelling the policy, they found my payment.

I had an accident and the dental costs are covered. I made a claim but there is no way to enter additional information besides writing it in the PDF or image. The result was that they only paid the outpatient fees. I had to get back to them several times via E-Mail and finally they paid the first treatment in full.

I sent the claim for the second treatment directly as E-Mail because I remembered the problems with the first treatment. They answered that I should send the claim via the app. I sent it with a detailed explanation in the document and guess what, they did not read it and again only paid the outpatient costs. I had to send it again as E-Mail and they finally paid.

What a waste of time.

This company is absolutely unable to process the requests, the staff is absolutely uninformed and is not able to assist in any way.

I could end my insurance because I have one with my employer now. I am so happy that I do not have to deal with this incompetent people anymore.

I got VHI Health and Dental insurance through my company (all cost covered by the company). After leaving the company, VHI sent me an invoice for each of the insurances for me to pay the rest of the period until the policy premium expiry date (it was almost €1000 for Health and €200 for Dental). I found this very infuriating because they made no effort to contact me to see if I want to keep the Health and Dental insurances on my own cost. I had to call their customer support by phone, 20 min on the line to get through Health support, they canceled my policy and then transferred me back in the call queue to talk to the dental team, another 10 min on the call and when the agent picked up, they hung up on me immediately. So after 30 min with them, I had consumed all my phone credit (€20) and only had my Health insurance canceled. Had to top up my phone and stay another 15 min to get through to their dental team before I could get this sorted.
Aside from the above, their VHI mobile app is useless for claims, they make it very difficult for people to get their money back from them. You have to pay for everything in advance, then claim it from them. Examples: they have a separate website where you have to register and create a new account just to submit dental claims, you cannot submit dental claims without knowing the teeth numbers (which are not always written on the receipt), you can only contact their customer support by phone (no chat or email support), they have limited and confusing categories for health claims which you have to select before you submit a claim, if you happen to select the wrong one because they are vague, they reject your claim and make you start all over again, etc
It's just clear in general that VHI is trying to make it as difficult, confusing and expensive for customers to get their money back, they have terrible Customer Support and trying to make people pay insurance premiums after leaving a company on a corporate plan is absolutely infuriating.

Waisted time and money

VHI on the whole over the years have been quite good. But then looking back I never claimed for anything much. This has changed since we took out VHI international. We pay 900 per month for two people. It is chaos. It is called VHI international but actually it is run by Collinson. Obviously contract is with VHI. But there are systemic problems which have resulted in us sitting here in Spain with no money whatsoever and having to go to social services tomorrow for food having exhausted all other options such as friends. The worst is the money they owe us means my credit card payment was late which I can not pay and I can not continue to keep the car for my disabled child. It has to go back on Saturday. They were told of this in advance, and yet despite this they still could not pay on time and make a difference.

There are four main problems:
1. Lack of coordination and clear messaging between VHI and Collinson. We call VHI and they say no that's VHI International and put you through and then they say no that's Collinson and they say no thats VHI. Who is accountable for what is unclear to me - and to VHI staff it seems.
2. Lack of ability to use the VHI portal once you are with VHI international. When you submit an invoice to VHI international you get an email saying a claim has been received but its impossible to tie everything up, then they email you raising queries and you have no idea at all what they are talking about. You can not use snip and send. We had domestic receipts to claim back. The year before we moved was very hard as one of us was ill and we did not know what was happening and it got left as low priority. On July 24th I tried to submit those by snip and send and found I couldn't so I called VHI who said no, you have to send everything by paper. I explained (and they know) our currently situation in Spain which is dire due to reasons not due to them but due medical illness of one of us, and then i had the pleasure of being electric shocks and am also now ill. I am now just started back at work but the reclaim was part of ensuring we had something to live on. Because our older claims are no longer visible in the portal because we are now on VHI international and my sight was bad. I couldnt believe I had to send by paper but did as told, only to have to keep calling and being told they had not receieved from Spain. But they had. It had been signed for - this went on for a week after they receieved it. When I had pushed back on sending by paper I had been told 'dont worry we will expedite everything'. I felt so reassured. But never has it been this bad. They have once more sent cheques and not paid despite an email last week stating no do not worry we are not sending cheques we have your bank details. Thus we have nothing. Literally nothing.
3. Lack of accountability. You call or email and you never get the same person. Honestly I really believe some of them make it up as they go along. There seems to be a lack of leadership and ownership. If you call up you can not get any sense at all. People answer emails without having read the chain and they contradict each other both on the phone and email. They keep trying to send cheques to Spain.
3. Their staff overuse GDPR. Whoever is giving them the training seems to have possibly come from a non healthcare background. What are you supposed to do if your other member is unconcious?? Well the insist on wanting to talk to them. It causes such distress. I ended up getting a power of attorney and then bizarrely when I provided it I had to give it to VHI, VHI International and Collinson separately otherwise I would call up and be passed around as usual but with people saying they could not help me. But I only have the one contract.
4. They added a 20% co-pay to VHI international with no adequate notice. Just in the renewal which when people are dependent on insurance abroad for residency and sick, this shows a complete lack of understanding of inevitable harm. They have stopped the other person being able to keep residency in Spain due to this. We can not go back to Ireland as there is no adeqaute medical care for their diagnosis which only got diagnosed here - this person is 23 years old and it is life limiting. Now we have to ask for residency on human rights grounds.

I could go on but I will not. It is a mess. I would give three pieces of advice.
1. If you are moving abroad look at ALL options before chosing VHI international and know the complexity. It is NOT VHI as they sub-contract which causes a lot of issues.
2. Ensure you have filed all of your domestic claims before moving to limit the chaos.
3. Ensure you have signed PoA between each other so that if something happens you are not stuck with their hyper GDPR

There are so many things which could be simply improved. There needs to be better leadership which is the problem within Ireland in terms of healthcare generally as we have learnt.

I switched to VHI only this month having been with Laya for over 11 years. For me, the acquisition of Laya by AXA changed the company, and not for the better. Claim payments got slower, significant price increases occurred, to name a few!
I much prefer to support an Irish owned company, hence my move to VHI.
I attended the Consultant last week, submitted my Everyday claim on the VHI app and claim paid the next day. All expenses at the Hospital were also covered minus the €75 excess. 10/10 from me.

Vhi swiftcare clinic swords, first time using this service, really impressed with service provided, up from wexford on holiday for few days, needed to visit doctor re eye..from the reception to the nurse and finally the doctor.. Everybody so good.. Thank you highly recommend 😊🙏👍

I phoned to discuss travel insurance for my wife,
she has a current multi trip travel policy that I set up and paid for last September,
we also have VHI health insurance which I setup and pay for,
VHI would not discuss this with me because I'm not my wife!
Infuriating!

We are on holidays in Tenerife. Our eldest needed to go to hospital. Our travel insurance was very unhelpful so we phoned VHI for advice. Immediately everything was sorted and healthcare was accessed and paid for by VHI. Huge thanks to George who was extremely helpful and professional.