Personal Health Insurance
The benefits of private health insurance

If you are in good health and rarely have any need to visit your doctor you may wonder what if any, are the benefits of private health insurance cover. Yet insurance, by its very nature, is something that you typically need to think about before you actually need it and health insurance or private medical insurance (PMI) is no different.

The role of the NHS

Many people in the UK are rightly proud of the NHS and the services it provides. Since the 1940s it has provided free (or more or less free) health services to all. Yet these services typically have certain limitations:

• in today’s world, much NHS care is targeted heavily towards urgent needs or critical illness protection;
  
  
• lengthy waiting lists may exist for procedures that are deemed ‘not urgent’;
  
  
• you may have to travel to a treatment centre which is a regional consolidation point for all such cases – this may not be convenient in all situations;
  
  
• specific treatment regimes such as complementary medicine may not always be available.

Depending upon your particular circumstances, these are limitations you may not wish to live with.

Private health insurance – providing you with choice

All of us hope, of course, that our loved ones and we will have perfect health at all times but being realistic, that’s perhaps unlikely to always be the case.

If you or your family do have need of non-urgent treatment, it might be nice to be sure that you will be able to:

• have your treatment at a time and a place that’s convenient for you;
  
  
• get fast access to a specialist or consultant;
  
  
• be treated in a very modern and well equipped hospital or clinic;
  
  
• possibly opt to choose (in certain circumstances) to use alternative forms of medicine.

Preventative care

The old saying that prevention is better than cure is taken very seriously by many private health insurance providers. Some private medical insurance (PMI) providers offer price reductions for people that follow healthy lifestyle regimes and also provide the opportunity to go through health screening programmes at a discounted cost.

These may not only give you peace of mind but may also pick up problems at the very earliest stages allowing early and effective treatment to take place.

Private health insurance schemes – the providers

There are now a wide range of PMI plans that you and your family can choose from.

As with all insurance, private health cover costs will typically vary depending upon the level of cover you select and the benefits it provides. There is typically a plan available to suit most needs and budgets, including family and single parent cover.

Private health insurance operates alongside the NHS and not in competition with it. Finding out more might be an interesting experience.