Private Medical Insurance

With the rising costs of healthcare, more and more people are preparing for any eventuality by covering their and their family's heath. People take out Private Medical Insurance (PMI) to ensure that they will receive treatment quickly if they are injured or become ill. PMI is designed to cover the costs of treating curable illnesses, diseases or injures (known as ‘acute conditions’). There are certain illnesses and treatments that are not covered by PMI and you will have to find out if these are available on the NHS or cover the costs yourself.

Private Medical Insurance is not designed to replace the services offered by the NHS (in fact, most private hospitals do not offer the Accident & Emergency services that are available on the NHS) but instead offers you a greater level of choice about how when and where you receive medical treatment and gives you access to more comfortable facilities when you have to stay overnight for treatment. With the number of products on the market, finding the right private medical insurance can be a confusing task if you have never done it before, so make use of SimplyFinance's articles and tools to find the best medical insurance coverage to meet your needs.

Private Medical Insurance: Quick Definitions

• Premium: a fixed amount that an insured person must pay (monthly or annually) in order to take advantage of services covered by their insurance plan.
• Excess: the amount an insured person must pay toward each claim before their medical insurance provider will take over the payment.  Many people choose to pay an excess of £100 or £250 towards the cost of treatment, as this can significantly lower your premium costs.
• Pre-existing medical condition:  A condition that you have suffered from prior to taking out the Private Medical Insurance policy.  Most insurers will not cover you for any conditions that you were aware of before you took out the policy.
• 'Acute' conditions: This is another term for short-term, curable illnesses.  Private Medical Insurance is designed to cover the costs of treating conditions of this nature, and the main focus of this type of insurance is on receiving more convenient and comfortable treatment than you may otherwise receive on the NHS.
• Moratorium: If you choose not to reveal your medical history when applying for PMI, you will be given this option.  This means that your medical history will be investigated when you make a claim, to establish whether the treatment that you are claiming for relates to a pre-existing condition.