The VHI made a profit of €65 million last year - its income from customers totalled €1.490.46 billion, up 4.1% on the previous year.

The State-backed health insurer implemented a number of premium hikes in 2013 and has continuied to increase premia this year. In April it increased premia by between five and 11% on 10 selected plans, and hiked up premia on most of its plans by between 2% and 7% in March.

The VHI's surplus of €65 million on its consolidated business in 2013 followed a surplus of €54.3 million in 2012.

The insurer said it had been tightening cost claims management, and the cost of claims has reduced by 2.1% in last year.

At the end of 2013, The VHI had cash reserves of over €389 million, bringing the company's solvency level to 156% compared to 108% in 2012 and 100% in 2011.

The VHI said its Special Investigations Unit (SIU) and medical review process continued to achieve savings, recovering a total of €14.8 million in 2013, following probes of discrepancies and errors in claims made by hospitals and doctors.

"More widespread use of data analytics by the SIU increased the identification of bed capacity breaches and over-utilisation and an increase in pre-payment and post payment validation calls have delivered additional savings in the period under review," the VHI said.