Question 1

How Much Does Health Insurance Cost in the UK?

Accepted Answer

There are three ‘tiers’ of Health Insurance when you’re looking at the UK market:

Low-cost Health Insurance
Typically doesn’t include any outpatient cover to reduce the cost of the policy. You’d need to use the NHS for all outpatient diagnostic tests, scans and consultations before the inpatient treatment kicks in.
Mid-tier Health Insurance
This includes at least some outpatient cover, typically capped, say at £1,000 per policy year. It means you get a good balance between having no outpatient cover and paying for unlimited cover under Comprehensive Health Insurance.
Comprehensive Health Insurance
Comprehensive Health Insurance typically covers both inpatient and outpatient cover in full. It may also include a range of options that could be only additional extras on low-cost and mid-tier plans, such as psychiatric cover.

How Much is Health Insurance a Month for a Single Person?

We’ve laid out the cost of UK Health Insurance for a single individual aged 30 living in the same postcode as our Brighton-based financial advisers across the three different Health Insurance tiers. Their excess is £250 per policy year.

Low Cost Cover
£35 per month

Mid-Range Cover
£60 per month

Comprehensive Cover
£70 per month

Question 2

What is the Cheapest Health Insurance?

Accepted Answer

As everyone’s circumstances, state of health and other factors are different, it’s hard to know which provider will offer the cheapest Health Insurance for you as an individual.

However, generally speaking, there are a number of ways you can look to reduce the cost of your coverage and get cheaper Medical Insurance premiums, including:

Adding an excess
An excess refers to the amount you’ll have to pay upfront for private medical treatment per policy year. As with car insurance, the larger the excess you’re willing and able to pay upfront before the policy kicks in and pays the rest, the lower your premiums will be.
Reducing outpatient cover
Outpatient treatment is all treatment that doesn’t require the use of a hospital bed for the day or overnight. It includes consultations, tests, x-rays and scans. It’s commonly diagnostic procedures that allow you to skip the waiting lists on the NHS for such tests before you get access to inpatient, surgical care. You can remove outpatient cover altogether — which would be a basic, low-cost Health Insurance policy — or you can opt for limited outpatient cover (a mid-range policy). A fully comprehensive policy sees outpatient treatment covered in full.
Limiting your hospital list
Central London has by far the most expensive hospitals and facilities in the country. Therefore, a policy that gives you access to these will be far more expensive than one that includes a reduced hospital list that will still cover a large range of private facilities, just not the UK’s most expensive hospitals.
Add the 6 week NHS wait
If you include this option on your policy, you’ll be treated on the NHS if the waiting list for your condition is less than 6 weeks. It’s only if the treatment you need isn’t available on the NHS or the wait is longer than 6 weeks for that treatment that your Health Insurance policy kicks in.

Question 3

What Doesn't Health Insurance Cover?

Accepted Answer

In the UK, Health Insurance is not designed to replace the NHS entirely. For instance, you’ll still have to use the NHS for emergencies, normal pregnancy and the management of chronic conditions.

For a referral for private treatment, your medical journey will typically start with an appointment with your NHS GP, another area of NHS / PMI crossover. You ask them for what’s known as an open referral and, once you have the details, go to your insurance company for authorisation for the claim. Once that’s been granted, you can visit the appropriate facility with your authorisation code for the treatment you need.

While this has been the procedure for many years, many Health Insurance providers are increasingly waking up to the fact that NHS GP services, like other parts of the health service, are creaking at the seams and it can take weeks to get an appointment to see your GP.

As a solution to this problem, certain providers have started bringing out mobile phone apps that allow you access to private video GP consultations via your smartphone. These GPs can make the same referrals as your NHS GP would be able to, just with a waiting list for an appointment of a fraction of the time.

Low Cost Health Insurance

What is Private Health Insurance?

What Does Private Health Insurance Cover?

How to Get Low-Cost Health Insurance

Limited Outpatient Cover

Add an Excess

6 Week NHS Wait

Reduced Hospital Lists

Switching to Cheaper Health Insurance

Common Health Insurance Questions

Compare Top 5 UK Health Insurance Companies

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