Vhi said it will increase its prices by an average of 3% across a range of plans from April 1.
The company said the increase is necessary to cover the rising costs of providing quality healthcare to customers this year and beyond.
Vhi said the cost of delivering care to its customers in clinical settings is rising due to enhanced and necessary Covid-related infection control measures, as well as the cost drivers associated with increased access to the latest new drugs, new technologies and new procedures.
In December, Vhi waived a proportion of its customers' premiums for a second time.
This was due to the fact that claims for 2020 were lower than expected as a result of the reduced access to healthcare facilities as part of the national response to Covid-19.
Declan Moran, Vhi's Director of Marketing and Business Development, said that premium waivers and pricing are determined by very different factors.
"Premium waivers are informed by historic behaviour. We look back on the claims experience and where claims are below what we forecast, we return value to our customers," Mr Moran said.
"Pricing looks forward and anticipates future healthcare needs and related claims costs," he said.
"Our open and transparent approach to both helps to reassure customers that we continue to work to keep premium prices as accessible as possible while also ensuring they are appropriate to meet current and future healthcare needs," he added.
Declan Moran said that 2020 was an exceptional year for all sectors of society and the private health insurance market was no different.
"With the focus justifiably on public health and the national response to the pandemic, private facilities were unavailable to our customers for a period of time and public hospitals were treating mainly Covid-19 patients for most of the year and as a result, claims were down," he said.
But despite the fact that claims were down in 2020, the cost of delivering care to those who avail of it, continues to rise, he added.
He said there will be significant pent-up demand across all parts of the healthcare system and Vhi needs to look to the future to ensure that it can deliver that care to customers, not just this year but over the next number of years.
"We have a responsibility to look forward and anticipate our customers future healthcare needs. Our pricing announcement today will ensure we can meet these future healthcare requirements," he added.
