BUPA Ireland expects to process more than 7,000 claims from its 36,000 subscribers this year and is likely to increase prices next year.

Mr O'Rourke says that while the end-of-year figure will ultimately depend on the numbers of subscribers enlisted, the company expects to process claims from one-in-five of them.

He adds: "If you look at the people joining health insurance for the first time, a huge percentage of them would be people with `no baggage' and would not be making claims straight away."

He also says it is more than likely that prices will increase in the New Year. BUPA is also due to introduce its new range of cash plans but not for some time yet.

"We are doing deals with hospitals for another few years down the line. We have to take the nurses agreement and the national wage agreement into account. We will have to recover our costs. There is no way we will have an increase from January 1st but there is likely to be an increase during the year. It is self-evident that we have to come in properly funded from the start. We will still be the most competitive in the market because we will have to be."