So, after wondering for decades whether I should have health insurance, I heard one too many stories about the NHS missing its cancer waiting time targets and applied for it with Vitality. I was surprised - nay, astonished - to find that the cost to me, a woman in my late fifties, was just under £38/month. (That's what they advertise, but I had assumed it would only apply if you were 20, and was expecting to be charged much more...)
If you have, or have had, insurance with Vitality, I'd be really interested to hear what happened to your premiums after year 1. I've read about their "A B C" approach where the premiums go up, they say, about 3% each year because your Age increases, some percentage each year for inflation in the Base costs of the medical care, and some percentage for your individual factors... but they're quite vague about the last one. How does it work in practice? Hypothetically, for example, suppose I make no claims in the first year and I do their standard health check stuff and stay pretty active - at a rough guess I think that might mean I'd make it to Gold vitality status, but Platinum looks a bit impractical unless my sums are wrong. I'm curious about what might happen to my premiums in the following year - any relevant experience?
(I've googled and read some stories here about them being difficult to claim from, but tbh such stories seems to exist for all insurers, and their reviews are pretty good on the whole. Up till now I'd just been assuming that I'd pay out of pocket for any private medical stuff I ever needed, i.e. if the NHS didn't seem to be going to provide it in reasonable time, but it's cancer that spooks me because cancer treatment is so expensive that that's not a reasonable plan, for me at least. So I'm not too bothered about how they weasel out of covering some things - it seems that "you have cancer" is clear-cut enough, and their coverage for that good enough, that there shouldn't be any weaseling there, and honestly I'd still have been ok paying this premium if it covered cancer and nothing else. If the premium is likely to triple next year, though, that's another matter, and I'd rather be prepared...)