The High Court has refused Chubb European Group plc’s application for judicial review of a Health Insurance Authority enforcement notice concerning medical insurance offered to non-EEA students studying in Ireland.
In a judgment delivered on 22 October 2018, Ms Justice Tara Burns found no basis for the remaining grounds of challenge and refused the relief sought. The application was separate from proceedings under section 18C of the Health Insurance Act 1994, in which Chubb had challenged the directions in the notice. The judge said issues already raised and considered in those related proceedings were inappropriate to pursue again in the judicial review.
The Authority’s notice, served on 20 March 2017, said it considered Chubb to be contravening section 16 of the Act by offering its Medicover Student Personal Medical Expenses Insurance Policy to non-EEA students attending courses in Ireland lasting more than one academic year. It directed Chubb either to restrict the policy to students attending courses of no more than one academic year or to become a registered undertaking.
Chubb argued that its policy fell within a statutory exception for insurance where the insured people were not ordinarily resident in the State. It also sought to quash the Authority’s determinations about ordinary residence and the notice itself. Those determinations did not arise for consideration in this judicial review, the judge said, in light of the related section 18C proceedings.
The Authority had raised a preliminary objection that section 18C provided the appropriate review route. The judge held that judicial review could, in principle, be available for a suitable challenge that could not be dealt with under that limited procedure. She also noted that the Authority had abandoned its argument that Chubb brought the judicial review out of time. The judge rejected the Authority’s separate estoppel argument.
On the remaining grounds, the judge rejected Chubb’s claim that the Authority had failed to make a determination before issuing the March 2017 notice. She said the Authority had already formed a view about the policy and Chubb’s compliance, and that withdrawing an earlier notice did not require it to make that determination again.
The judge also rejected Chubb’s claim that correspondence in 2011 created a legitimate expectation that no enforcement notice would issue. The Authority had not confirmed Chubb’s understanding, and Chubb had not acted to its detriment, she said. She further found that the Authority had not exercised a legislative function by setting out the circumstances in which it would regard a non-EEA student as ordinarily resident. A complaint that the Authority lacked candour did not affect her determinations and was not considered.
The court refused the relief sought. The judgment does not set out the outcome of the separate section 18C proceedings.