Private health premiums increased drastically - Vitality Health Insirance

[KindnessisKey]

Hello,

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced a HUGE price hike in private health insurance premiums this year?

We took over my corporate health policy when I left 23 years ago and have paid faithfully into it each year and never used it. Until 2021 when I was diagnosed with Stage III cancer.

Understandably treatment for that has cost Vitality (that’s our insurer) an arm and a leg but since last year they have trebled our premiums and this year they want £20,160 per annum for two adults (one who has never used the policy) both just 50 years old.

For clarity it has increased over the 20 year period at a rate above inflation but doable. Prior to and during my cancer diagnosis and then treatment we were paying £6,720 per annum (so £560 per month still a lot!).

My husband is self employed so we pay this out of our own private taxed income. And yes we know it is a luxury rather than a necessity but we are also of the view that taking us out of the NHS relieves the burden on its resources and time for others.

In fact I would say it actually has been a necessity because my GP misdiagnosed me twice over a 7 month period, sending me away on 2 separate occasions, saying there was nothing wrong with me when in fact I had cancer. And during this 7 month period my cancer was progressing at an alarming rate so by the time it was decided that I would dip into my private healthcare for a second opinion I was already Stage III and on the cusp of Stage IV (which would have meant palliative care only). So I have been very lucky (I have two young children age 8 and 10 so I had every reason to keep myself alive!) which had I listened to that GP and not gone back a third time and demanded a referral, I would not be here now. So I have every reason to be very grateful that my husband paid all those years into this policy.

But £20,000 a year just as insurance is exponentially higher. My cancer isn’t a lifestyle choice. My type of cancer is caused by a virus that can change rogue cells to cancer not because I have an unhealthy lifestyle. I eat healthily, I don’t drink, have never smoked and I take regular exercise.

We expect premiums to increase, of course we do, they’re running a business but not to cripple us! This seems completely disproportionate and just unacceptable.

Vitality has us over a barrel. I’ve only just recovered and the future is by no way certain, we have paid in to that policy for 23 years (over £100,000) and now they’re going to make it impossible for us to stay. It is appalling.

I am in remission now (in my 3rd year) so my annual costs for the scans that I have to have until I reach 5 years cancer free will be £2,250 (I am lucky that my cancer is highly curable even at stage III). And for that they want £20,000. But if we let the policy go I will never get insurance again and, yes, I can go into the NHS system but then why have I paid faithfully for the last 23 years hoping that this policy would take me into my old age?

Please be kind… yes private health is a luxury but we have chosen to do without other things in life in order to afford this and having had cancer it has been worth its weight in gold but to be punished like this as a cancer patient is just unacceptable.

Insurance companies all get their pound of flesh in the end… shameful.

When DH retired six years ago we were quoted £12000 per year from AXA. We’d been with them for many years as part of a work package. We negotiated it down to £6000 by restricting the hospitals it would cover. Probably other restrictions too. I can’t really remember now.

We decided we weren’t going to pay that and we’d just pay for private surgery if needed.

Four months later I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The care I received on the NHS could not have been better. I didn’t even have time to consider private care. The cancer was found at a routine mammogram and everything was just organised very quickly and efficiently. I do think care on the NHS is a bit of a post code lottery and I was lucky.

I know I’m uninsurable now though. This is the problem with private healthcare. It’s fine when you’re young and healthy but once you get to the stage you might need it, it becomes unaffordable.

It's for everyone no matter about your health. I've used them quite a bit, it's really good.

@Ginisatonic the thing is that was 5~6 years ago.

Nowadays people are put on waiting list and by the time they finally see the oncologist, they are told it’s too late - palliative care only.

Unfortunately, this is what this current government wanted. Fully private healthcare if you want to live.
Working ok if you work and have insurance through work (which we are lucky to have through dh company). Otherwise just prohibitive but for the richest.

(This doesn’t mean people in the NHS aren’t doing their best and the care now can’t be good and even extremely good btw. It’s less likely to be when everyone is so stretched out)

This is why I said it was a post code lottery. For breast cancer, care at my local hospital is still good. I will say they receive a lot of donations from grateful patients. And the breast cancer unit is separate from the oncology department.

I certainly agree that the current government are happy to run the NHS into the ground.

Does anyone know how much the average private cancer treatment is?

Wonder if it is better to put the premium in to a high interest account and set aside, hopefully do not need to use it.

@KindnessisKey I have vitality with work (which I then up to family cover for my husband and daughter) and interestingly enough we have had an email to say there will be a massive rise 2.5 times I believe this year so they are looking at alternative options. I have also found vitality to be very difficult to deal with. It will be interesting to see what they suggest. I used to have Bupa (which wasn't underwritten so took existing conditions) through my previous work and this was as cheap as mine is now (if not cheaper!).

@coldcallerbaiter

It absolutely depends on your type of cancer, what stage you are, what treatment you’re offered, what complications arise!

For instance a 10 minute private CT scan with contrast at The Royal Marsden is £2,300 or thereabouts. A 45 minute MRI is about £1600 and a 30 min consultation with oncologist is about £150-250.

For 6 weeks of chemo and radiation every day you’re looking upwards of £60,000 purely for the treatment then there’s nurse care and blood tests on top of that like extra medications d prescriptions charges. So let’s say around £75 to 150k for stomach or bowel cancer. But that’s just a ballpark figure because if there are complications or you go into immunotherapy the costs just go on and on.

At the beginning of treatment you can expect to have several scans to diagnose you, then after treatment it’s usually very 3 months for the first two years. Then every 6 months for 3 years and then annually for life (although some
might stop if they’re feeling brave). Countless consultations too.

More complicated cancers with extra treatments could go into several hundred thousand pounds and then some.

A heart bypass operation might cost upwards of £35k, a new hip £10-15k each hip! Every patient is different so it’s hard to be sure.

Ok thanks for those costs. Can you mix and match with the NHS? Do the urgent time critical stuff with private and then follow ups with NHS for example.

Crikey that's a massive jump in premium OP!
Sorry to hear your health's not been good.

I was going to suggest you put an affordable mount aside every year to cover self pay and cancel the insurance. But having now heard the costs involved in ongoing monitoring and uncertainty of requirements of future treatment I'd be inclined to try and stay with them if you can.
But definitely worth the rest of the family shopping around as they may get a far better deal

Wow, just wow. So people in your position would need to make the difficult choice between selling the house to pay for cancer treatment or being in an NHS queue and potentially die waiting. Or pay £20k per annum for health insurance. What a society.

There are different ways you can do insurance

One is the personal version based on future risk where people become effective uninsurable

The other is to take the total expected bill and divide it equally between all users

The "national insurance" model was more like this , only the division was based on ability to pay

I kind of think a version where your personal choices did matter ( weight, smoker, alcohol) but your genetics and lick didn't would be ok - push people towards healthier lives but otherwise share the risk

Yes that a bit sums it up @Tryingtobewellbalanced ! Isn’t it crazy. Of course the NHS can be fantastic in some areas but I was misdiagnosed twice over 7 months so ended up stage III (on the cusp of stage IV palliative only as I had two tumours but because they were both locally situated I managed to scrape into the stage III category by the skin of my teeth. It was touch and go for a while but I had an amazing team and whist the treatment damn near killed me (whole other story) after 3 years recovery I have finally made it upright and living my life again. Literally in the last 3 months I’ve only just begun to live properly again and have energy. It’s been a long slog. And now this…

I understand im a huge risk going forward in their eyes but actually for my type of cancer if I make it to 3 years I have an 85% chance of living the rest of my life free of this cancer! So actually probably a better risk than some of those that haven’t had cancer (yet!). it’s one in two of us nowadays apparently which is just appalling. But quite often it’s because it goes undiagnosed or misdiagnosed! So you could be caught pre cancer if they screened you but they don’t…

I am incredibly lucky that although we’ll have to fire go some holidays or moving house or pull our belts in but we will have to pay the £20k because I can’t trust my health anymore. Just in case… my heart absolutely breaks for those who don’t have a choice and for those who will simply be failed by the system and slip through the net. Particularly young people who should have their whole lives ahead of them. They’re ignored and told “youre fine, your you. And healthy it can’t possibly be anything serious”. Look at Dame Deborah James… she had a terrible time and leaves two young children behind. She spoke openly about having private healthcare through her husbands work. But even then she had to top it up as it wouldn’t cover everything.

I don’t mind paying, far from it, but a 300% rise in just one year is mind boggling….

OP I'm genuinely sorry that you've had to go through what you have, and so glad to hear you are now well.
But as many PPs have said, health insurance is a business and their purpose is to make money. Sadly you will likely cost them lots more money going forward. Your future risk is huge. That's what you're paying for.

yes I’m afraid so! Quite a greedy business though… they make trillions from millions of people that will never make a claim or might make tiny claims. And then they will claw back from me what my treatment has cost (by charging me this astronomical amount for another (hopefully) 30 years (god willing) even though I’d already nearly paid for my entire treatment in my premiums I’d already paid in over my 23 years as a customer! Yup… I’m going to have to just suck it up and have a glass of well earned wine and take my mind off it! 😂

Thank you everyone on here today, you’ve been so informative and kind (and for those that weren’t, I see the Mumsnet gods got rid of you pronto 🤣).

The clue is in my name “kindness is key” it’s nice to have a chat with like minded people and even though we may not all agree on everything it’s still interesting isn’t it and we learn things we didn’t know! I’m always happy to share info so if there is anyone out there worrying about cancer or their cancer care or just needs a shoulder if they’re going through cancer right now feel free to DM me.

Have a lovely evening everyone and I wish you all good health - let’s hope some wonderful scientist finds us a cure for cancer and other illnesses and then we won’t need this private health malarkey!!

Xxx

used to work in PMI - the corporate PMI market is totally different from holding PMI as an individual. The corporates play insurance companies off each other - they churn themselves around so aren't paying the premium increases that an individual of smaller employer would pay.

So when individuals leave their corporate PMI, they sees massive premium increases. You're now seeing the real cost of PMI - it ain't cheap

@SwordToFlamethrower

So you do understand that we all pay tax and support the NHS… ???? I still do that and can choose to use my money to pay for private care. Therefore taking me out of the NHS system and leaving space for people who otherwise would be waiting for treatment….

I am no mug, far from it I’d say! In fact I’d go as far as to say I’m better at supporting the NHS than you as I’m not a drain on it!

Have a lovely evening, maybe join another thread where you can be of some actual positive help….

It isn’t cheap but it has saved my life so that’s a cost I am willing (albeit it a bit less chuffed about todays premium!) to bear.

Hi OP, so sorry to hear of your cancer journey.

I'm not in the UK but your title piqued my interest. Here we have to have private insurance, we get great care, but we pay for it.

One of our top insurance companies (Discovery) is the holding company for your insurance. They are the bees knees, the top dog, but are also the most expensive. We have an added feature called Vitality which is what made me think they were linked.

So those on this insurance get the best cover. I won't question that. But it also means that when those who need it the most, may not get this good cover elsewhere. There will most likely be exclusions for pre-existing condition, or maybe limited cover with a waiting period if moving.

What we would do in this instance, is to try downgrade the cover with them. Usually you can only downgrade once per a certain period, but we can upgrade any time. The other alternative is that you stay on the policy as solo, and your DH and the dc take different cover elsewhere at a better rate. When putting in notice, it's possible they will have a retention team who will contact you. They will more than likely offer you a better rate to try get you to stay. It doesn't always work though, so you do have to go the the process of finding the other cover first, and to actually move if Vitality don't make a decent offer to keep you.

I suppose though, that part of your increase is because your risk is higher now. But your DH and DC are being penalized for this too by staying on it.

It's possible some of this might not apply to your policy, but just incase it could I have just mentioned these.

It's a lot of money per year though I do agree.

From our experience, the best bet is to get a family policy with another provider which excludes your cancer, and then stay with vitality for you for cancer cover but on a much reduced basis - so reduce number of outpatient visits, consultations etc because you know you will only ever use it to cover you for cancer. Should get the price down. Good luck!

I'm sorry you had cancer op and I'm sorry you've subsequently been priced out of private healthcare. I understand you had a bad experience with a GP but most of the NHS still functions - I'm pretty sure your cancer treatment would have been essentially the same without health insurance. The NHS will treat you if you need healthcare. If something isn't covered or has a long waiting list putting aside £500 a month or whatever you can afford should put you in a position to pay for your own treatment if you need to. I'd suggest that's the way to go.

. The NHS will treat you if you need healthcare.

I’m going to disagree with that.
Its much more complicated than that, esp if you have a chronic illness or something that doesn’t fit a neat diagnosis.

That’s not logical though.
i doubt that insurances are offering prices that will put them in the red to big companies. Because big companies means lots of people and therefore more claims!
Rather the price individuals pay is what those companies can get away with because all of them agree to high prices and an individual has no way to put pressure on said insurance companies.

Vitality have made my life a complete misery over the last few months almost reducing me to begging for every bit of treatment required. It would take pages to list all the awful ways in which they've behaved and I'm moving my complaint on through the ombudsman. Like the OP, we've paid into the wretched company for 25 years and when the time has come to need some help.....well, it's taken months to get just the money I'm owed let alone any kind of compensation for the time and stress taken. I'm not the complaining type at all, definitely a move on sort of person, but I've been so upset and let down by them that I am.takimg it further. Fighting to get out of paying anything and my treatment in total has amounted to £8.5k and it's been a fight from day one, for comparison we've paid in over £130k in premiums, what an absolute idiot I've been taken for. All that slick advertising with gadgets and flippin Daschunds etc, just look after your customers maybe...

The costs for MRI and CT scans are extortionate in London. You are not paying for the scan but for the postcode. My son recently had an MRI of his shoulder ( the newest type where the resolution is so good you don’t need contrast) and it cost £200. A full body would be less than 1k. Few hospitals have these imaging units.
For any private treatment I would always go outside of London.

It would be definitely be worth travelling outside of London for imaging, you could save thousands.

Cancer treatment is the same whether you use NHS or private. And although currently the press are having a field day with waiting times, in our area they are back to pre pandemic times.

We have a dedicated breast unit which is housed in a separate building. It provides a brilliant service, has its own imaging unit and there are lots of post treatment support events.
The screening department is probably the most efficient department in the Trust. The radiographers run it themselves. They are always on time, brilliant with the patients and they don’t use support staff ( receptionists ). All letters of invitation are automated through NHS England.
They also do the follow up mammograms for post breast cancer patients and are total professionals.
If all the NHS worked like them we wouldn’t have any problems.