The average health insurance premium paid out by subscribers last year was €1,150, according to the Health Insurance Authority (HIA).

This represented a 10% increase on the average premium paid out in 2012, according to the HIA's latest annual report.

The HIA says the average amount in claims paid per insured person fell by 2% in 2013, reversing the trend of the past 10 years, when the average claims per insured person had been increasingly significantly.

In the four years between 2004 and 2008, the average prescribed benefit paid per insured person increased by 6.7% per annum on average, and by 12.6% on average between 2008 and 2012.

The number of treatment days in hospital covered by health insurance fell by around 3% in 2013, according to the HIA.

The Authority says the fall in claims per insured person in 2013 is a favourable development for the sustainability of the health insurance market, especially when considered in the context of drivers of of upward health costs.

These include lower tolerance of people towards ill-health, new medical and surgical developments and the ageing population, the HIA says.

It says the VHI currently has 54% of the health insurance market share, compared to 95% in the mid-1990s. prior to competition.

Laya Healthcare now has a 23% market share, Aviva Health has 15% of the market, while GloHealth has a 4% share.

The health insurance market is the largest non-life insurance sector in Ireland, according to the HIA. Premium income in 2013 was €2.4 billion, having risen from €2.2 billion in 2012.

Forty five per cent of the population were covered by health insurance at the end of last year, compared to 50.9% at the end of 2008.

The Authority says while the number of different health insurance products continues to grow, in the main, these new products are similar to those that already exist.

It says a significant recent development has been that during 2013, insurers started selling health insurance products that do not cover all public hospitals.