41,000 people dropped their health insurance in the year to the end of June. The figure has been released by the Health Insurance Authority.

Just over two million people now have private insurance around the country, down from the peak of nearly 2.3 million at the end of 2008.

There were 2,017,000 people insured with inpatient health insurance plans at the end of June. This is a drop in the number of insured people of 11,000 over the quarter.

As well as those insured with inpatient plans, there were 102,000 insured with products solely providing outpatient benefits or health insurance cash plans.

The then-Health Minister James Reilly announced on July 7th that he had signed into law a new measure - Lifetime Community Rating - to encourage people to take out private health insurance at a younger age.

After May 1st 2015, people aged 35 and upwards will be subject to a late entry loading when taking out private health insurance.

Existing health insurance customers who continue to retain their cover will not be affected.