Ireland

Axco provides details on the life insurance sector including Irish market participants, reinsurance and distribution channels. The reports describe classes of business from both individual and group life such as whole life, endowment, term life and unit-linked.
Information on non-life classes for example critical illness and private medical insurance.

The report describes the public and private healthcare system in Ireland, the scope of cover, accessibility financing and provides an analysis of how the public and private systems complement each other.

Axco reports on the three pillars of Irish pension provision.

• State pension benefits including benefit calculations and eligibility criteria 
• Workplace pension provision; types of schemes calculations eligibility and; tax implications
• Voluntary individual pension provision, type of products and tax implications

The Ireland report provides an in-depth analysis of the regulatory framework governing social security as well as details on financing and eligibility. Information includes but is not limited to

• state pensions,
• permanent disability benefit
• occupational accident and disease
• maternity and paternity payments 

The domestic life market has much in common with its larger neighbour the UK: UK-based insurers have long been a significant presence. Its relatively small size, however, presents a limited opportunity to multinational players, having more often established to exploit the greater potential of the EU cross-border market.

This is a savings-oriented life market dominated since the 1960s by unit-linked contracts, accounting for 83% of domestic ....

The Irish pension system provides a universal single-tier state pension with a replacement rate around a third of average earnings considered adequate for the lower paid. It is supplemented by voluntary employer-sponsored occupational pensions including defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC) and hybrid provision. Personal pensions are available to un-pensioned employees and the self-employed on a voluntary basis.

Reform of the entire system is increasingly urgent in light of ageing demographics and diminished Pillar II ....

Ireland has a dual public private healthcare system, with PMI a significant source of finance for access to private health.

The lowest income earners, accounting for approximately a third of the population, receive free public care under a means-tested medical card system. The more affluent are incentivised through price controls and tax concessions to buy PMI, which in turn offers private supplementary benefits to the public health system with access to immediate elective treatment and ....