private medical insurance pros and cons

[daveydavey]

I currently pay for PMI for myself and 2 kids. Prompted by recent renewal premiums I am wondering if I should go the self insure route and stop policies. I could accept the risk myself and still elect to go private if and when I need to access specialist medical advice. i understand companies such as Bupa now offer a menu approach to operations so I'm not sure what the benefit is of paying ( 3 ) monthly premiums. Has anyone got any practical experience of going the self insure route please ?

Lots of people find the self insure route more cost effective BUT the one caution I would add is that if you are ever unlucky enough to face cancer private patients often have access to drugs that haven’t yet been approved for use by the nhs. These can run into the tens / hundreds of thousands - so worth bearing in mind.

Arguably you don’t have to self-Insure in the UK as you have the NHS, so that effectively is your insurance.

I think the big question is work. Are you self-employed versus employed. Do you get sick pay? My experience is a lot of people who don’t have work policies pay privately because they can’t afford to wait for nhs treatment.

Have you rung your insurer and asked about policy options? You can increase excess (I have mine at 1k). Up to 1k there were substantial discounts on premiums - after that not so much.

That's very helpful advice so many thanks. I'm self employed but will definitely look at excess. . Much obliged!