What is Private Medical Insurance?
Private medical insurance (PMI) is a policy taken out to protect against costs, waiting times and some specialist medical requirements that you could incur in the future. Sometimes it is referred to as Private Health Insurance.
PMI has increased over the last twenty years as the chart below shows, although growth over the last few years has slowed down due to the economic climate in the U.K.
Why should I take out Private Medical Insurance?
There is nothing in life more important than your health and/or your family. When you look at the various ways you can protect them, private medical insurance needs to be towards the top of your list of priorities. You will get an incredible amount of peace of mind just from knowing that if they or you are deemed to have a serious or life affecting illness, you will be able to get them seen, diagnosed and treated as soon as is possible.
Basic private medical insurance usually picks up the costs of most in-patient treatments (tests and surgery) and day-care surgery. Dependent upon the level of your cover, any outpatient surgical procedures will also be paid for by your plan.
Instead of having to wait months or sometimes even years to be seen by a specialist or have the surgery require, you will be able to pick a time and date to be seen that suits your requirements.
Who needs PMI?
You would primarily benefit the most from a private medial insurance policy most if:-
- you would prefer not to wait for NHS treatment
- you just don’t want to use the NHS and would prefer to stick to private hospitals where possible
- you want to be covered for drugs and treatment you can’t get on the NHS, like specialist surgery for sports-related injuries (check that the treatment is included in your policy before you buy)
What will your policy exclude?
Your healthcare insurance usually doesn’t cover:
- organ transplants
- pre-existing medical conditions
- normal pregnancy and childbirth costs
- cosmetic surgery to improve your appearance
- injuries relating to dangerous sports or arising from war or war-like hostilities
- chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDs-related illnesses, diabetes, epilepsy, hypertension and related illnesses
You might be able to choose a policy that covers mental health, depression and sports injuries but these aren’t automatically covered.