Private Health Insurance - Need Advice Please

[Earlybird]

Do any of you have private health insurance with a company you'd recommend? Have you ever made a claim, and did you find the company reasonable to deal with?

I had private health insurance with my previous job, and kept it on an "individual group leaver" basis when I left the job. I am not unhappy with the company, but I do think it is very expensive. I also am aware that I have no idea if the company is good to deal with regarding claims, as we have never made any!!

Rather than automatically renew this year, I'd like to do some shopping around/price comparison. I'm with Western Provident (WPA), and pay 3800pounds per year for me and dd. We are both frighteningly healthy, and have no pre-existing conditions (knock wood).

Your guidance is, as always, much appreciated.

bump for the daytime crowd.

And I made a mistake in last night's posting - I "only" pay 3400pounds annually for private insurance.

£283 a month for you and a child .. that sounds phenomenally expensive

When I left company Bupa scheme I was quoted £90 a month to continue cover for me and one child (thankfully was able to join DH's PPP scheme at half that cost for me and £20 a month per child)

You can scale cover dependent on your budget so eg have limits on out patient and no limit on in patient .. DH's company has a K limit

even though PPP pay out they do make it slightly difficult at times ..

I think all private health companies are pains tbh

When you shop around do so with a budget in mind .. I would half your current cost to start with .. and see what cover you can get

I was actually pleased this year to need an operation IYSWIM, cos at least we got some money back

Agree that this sounds very expensive, on the one year dh spent as a consultant and we organised our own (2003-04),we were paying just over £100 a month for 2 adults and 2 children (all healthy). This was a relatively high level of cover. If you call a couple of the large providers PPP, BUPA etc they should be able to give you a quote on the phone and I'm sure could do better than that.

We're with AXA PPP thorugh Dh's work, and I have to say that I have found them to be great. Almost everything is dealt with by the phone. They have been able to agree treatment very quickly (again on the phone), and either I haven't had to handle payment, or I simply forward the invoice. They haven't tried to rip me off - Ds2 was slow with speech so HV suggested SALT at age 2 - AXA made it clear that they didn't cover slow development, but they would cover say a hearing test and any SALT required by a medical condition. Hearing test showed up glue ear, and we were offered SALT if we wanted it.

HTH

with aviva and very happy. wpa quote seems very high.

would not bother in this country - only pays out to get you slightly quicker treatment and nicer room. Companies only pay for it to get you back to work quicker. Save the money in an ISA and spend if you feel it is worthwhile at the time, or use the NHS you pay tax for instead and keep the money for other things. Private health insurance does not, I think, pay for any drugs which are not used in the NHS, so no benefit there.

£283 per month for you and child is very expensive.

DH has his own firm and the bill for the whole company for the month is £531 for a comprehensive policy, the only restriction being exclusion of central London teaching hospitals. That is for 5 adults and 2 children and includes a price hike caused by yours truly being awkward enough to have a brain tumour in the last policy year!

That is through Pruhealth. As mentioned above, I made a big claim on the policy this year and found them extremely efficient and helpful. They confirmed cover over the phone on the spot and dealt with all bills direct. They did send letters detailing the invoices they had paid for information (and to make me feel guilty I was costing them over £10k I am sure! )
but all i had to do was tell them who I was making appointments with and they dealt with the rest.

youngermother, not sure I agree with you. I got much quicker diagnosis privately and an operation within 5 days. On the NHS I would have had to wait at least 2 more weeks for a consultant appointment and probably 2 more weeks for an operation. I would definitely had to have spent that time in a wheelchair and, due to the unstable nature of my condition, i could have died before diagnosis.

Carrot your experience is very rare and, at £3800pa, is less than 3 years costs, so save and spend on the care if required. Very quick treatment, if required, will not break the bank and long-term expensive treatment covered by NHS.

Youngermother, what planet are you on?

My experience is NOT very rare - serious illness needing urgent care happens all the time - several members of my family have suffered from various serious illnesses needing urgent treatment and I am not unusual.

You must have a very large bank balance indeed if an unexpected bill of £10k+ would not break it. I am of more modest means and would never have been able to pay this myself.

Not sure how you are doing your sums. The £531 pm covers 5 adults and 2 children as I explain in my post. The bill for just me is about £100 pm. That means my £10k bill is 8.3 years costs.

Sorry, don't think you are in the real world on this. Maybe you have never had a serious illness?

never had, nor anyone I know. The OP posted £3,800pa for 1 adult and 1 child which is where I got the sums from.

Even your costs are £6,372 pa, over 40 yrs is £254,880 which covers 25 serious illnesses for 7 people, ie 3 each or one ever 10 years per person, which, I think is very rare. Unless you think this sort of thing does occur on a regular basis for everyone.

Effectively one person every 18 months on the scheme could have your issues and you break even not paying. More than 18 months apart, better off saving the money.

BTW have nor included interest income on the savings, tax free in an ISA in any of these calculations.

Younger, I think everyone is agreed that the OP is paying well over the odds so your advice not to have cover at all is not based on the cost of a good value policy.

Making theoretical calculations on the amount of money you would end up with at the end of 40 years if you banked the cost of the policy is not very helpful as serious illness is not going to wait 40 years until you have enough money to pay the cost of an operation.

I guess it all depends on your attitude to risk. You could make the same argument about any form of insurance. If you want to take a bet on not suffering any serious illness until you have built up a big enough pot of savings to cover treatment then go ahead and take the risk. You may or may not pull it off. Insurance is there for those who don't want to take the risk of losing the bet.

Just anecdotal evidence I know, but DH's firms policy has paid for my brain tumout treatment, cancer treatment for his colleague, open heart surgery for another colleague and I think about 15 other less serious conditions over the last 10 years. Maybe we are a particularly unhealthy lot, but i guess we have "won the bet" on taking the insurance.

Also bear in mind that the premium we are paying now takes into account this claim history. Someone with no similar claims will pay a lot less.

By the way, younger, I assume from your name that you are in fact a lot younger than me. When i was young I was also very healthy and had not suffered any major illnesses, nor did i know anyone who had. As you get older that changes.

Also, given that 1 in 3 of us will statistically contract cancer in our lifetime I would say that, sadly, your experience is not the norm.

But that is my point, saving when young in a self-insurance pot covers the cost later. Also we have an NHS that covers most conditions in a reasonable timescale, but agree it is based on attitude to risk.

Youngermother1 - not sure that is always the case. My friend has just claimed the cost of chemo and radiotherapy for breast cancer - this would be horrendously expensive and not something I would envisage being able to save for over a few years

Agreed, teddyandsheep.

My condition, though serious, was sorted out quite easily and without extensive follow up treatment being necessary as it was benign. It still cost in excess of £10k all in. If I had cancer and needed extensive chemo and other treatment that £254k lifetime savings pot youngermum mentions would soon have a large dent in it.

Oh, and younger, make sure you don't get ill until you are in your 60s as that pot by your own calculations would take 40 years to save up

but what about the NHS - private health cover is not necessary in this country - chronic illness cover is covered by that. private cover is only needed for quicker treatment.

Private health care is good for elective stuff that you want done in a hurry with a nice carpet in your room.

If you have anything serious go NHS. They are v bad at this privately and if you are really ill will turf you out to the local hospital anyway. Private often also has lower staffing levels and actually pays less to nurses!

All the best medics are in the NHS, but make extra cash by pandering to people who think private is special.

The dangers are higher privately as their are laxer controls on medics and no peer review.

If you really need something in a hurry, just pay for a consultation and negotiate a deal, taking a loan if you have to.

Private for kids is pointless as they are treated so well and quickly on the NHS.

Remember private is a business. They always over treat as it makes them more money!

I am afraid that I strongly disagree about private being useless for children, in our family it is a priority. I am simply not prepared to wait when it comes to my children's health. We have used our private cover numerous times for the children starting from when DS1 was 4 months old and diagnosed with severe infected excema due to a milk allergy which was completely missed by the GP and health visitors. It was a private paediatrician who admitted my desperately ill son to hospital after we were sent home from A&E. He was admitted to an NHS hospital where the care was excellent but it was the private doctor who was the only one to actually sit down and explain exactly what had happened and how to avoid it again. On the NHS they didn't have the time to explain it to me. I know that if I email my paediatrician about anything he will email me back that day.

Private for my kids buys me piece of mind that I can choose who to see when I want to see them and in my experience with far better care and service than I have ever had on the NHS.

Alad - my operation was definitely not elective and going private bought me the precious commodity of time. I was in an emergency situation where even the wait of a couple of extra weeks i was looking at on the NHS could have been fatal.

I was treated in the best neurosurgery centre in the country by one of their best neurosurgeons.No private room and no fancy carpets, but i avoided dying. Seems like good value to me. The NHS hospital billed my insurance company for the cost of the operation and hospital stay.

Serious conditions will rarely be treated in private hospitals, they don't have the facilities or the expertise. All top NHS consultants do private work, without exception. They will either do it through their NHS hospital or through the private hospital that they are often attached to as well. It is almost unheard of for a consultant to do only private work, they would never get the experience necessary.

I went to the private hospital for consultations and scans only. I was seen by the same consultants I would have seen on the NHS only, crucially, a lot sooner.

Alad, I could not have afforded to take out a loan for the total cost of my treatment. We would have had to sell the house. Not an option I personally want to risk.

The NHS is generally very good for the urgent life saving stuff (although this varies around the country unfortunately) but where private health insurance comes into it's own is on non urgent treatment that has a quality of life issue such as hip, knee replacements, back surgery and physio.
Company policies are always better value than individual policies as they asses on group risk rather than individual risk.
I have health insurance through work but can't get cover on my own due to pre existing health conditions which due to the health condition / treatment side effects gives insurance a huge get out clause.
Private health insurance does not guarantee that you will be diagnosed quicker or better only that you will be seen quicker. The doctors are generally the same Dr's who work for the NHS (not always but mostly) you will get more time and a nicer environment (which is essentially what you are paying for) but you are also more likely to be sent for more tests and treated with more expensive not necessarily better treatments. Private health treatment often works better on a perception level as you feel like you are in control rather than the NHS. (our family has experience of this it's not just opinion)
I have private health insurance through work for the reason that in theory it would get me back on my feet quicker if anything happened which is essential from the companies point of view as I'm the only person qualified to do certain stuff. But in practice most of my health treatment for my long term condition is through the NHS as the best rheumys in this area don't do private work.
It sounds like you are paying over the odds our GGP are paying about that for 2 of them with Bupa at the ends of their lives with multiple health problems.
It might pay to shop around ... My work is through Pru health and they were very good when a colleague had to claim for back surgery.

Carrots all top NHS consultants do not take on private work - lots do but I personally know many who don't for moral reasons (not because they aren't qualified they really are the best in their field but feel that they should be available to everybody not just those who can pay for it) that doesn't mean that all their hours are NHS treatment time tho many supplement with teaching or research.