About Private Medical Insurance

 

In years gone by Private Health Insurance was for the affluent who wanted to set themselves aside from the average individual by being treated in a private room in a private hospital on a one to one basis with their doctor & nurses.

Private Health Insurance policies can and are still used for this purpose, but in the main, are now used as a means of gaining immediate access to treatment, thus avoiding the NHS waiting lists or to avoid what is termed by the press as the lottery system where you can obtain a particular treatment or drug etc in one area of the NHS but not in another.

Private Medical Insurance is not the end of the NHS nor is it even competition to the NHS. As well as private hospitals an increasing number of NHS hospitals now have private wings and each time somebody with a private health policy is treated there the insurance company pays funds into that hospital. Increasingly this system is benefiting these hospitals with extra funds to provide a better service to those that need treatment and are unable to pay.

As Great Britain is now virtually the only European country without a widespread private health insurance sector it is seen by many multi national health insurance companies as the last growth market. In many ways this brings benefits to the consumer, more competition, lower prices and a far wider selection of the type and nature of health insurance policies available. The downside is that this increased competition and availability has made the market very confusing and complicated to understand.

The Private Medical insurance market generally has three basic options to which you can add extras if you wish. These are:

SILVER: A budget package that only includes in patient cover.

GOLD:    Inpatient cover with limited outpatient cover.

PLATINUM: Inpatient cover with full outpatient cover

Each type of health insurance policy may carry a level of excess from zero to £5000. This is the amount you have to pay as part of any claim or per person per annum in the event of a claim. A higher excess amount obviously means a lower premium.