Archive: MoneySavingExpert's Money Tips Email

How to get the cheapest Private Health Insurance

New. Get a £370 Apple Watch Series 11 for just £9 if you're young(ish), fit(ish) & go to the gym

Martin: "The NHS and its staff are true national treasures. Yet, painful as it is to write, the pandemic and cost of living crises, among other things, mean it's struggled. In recent years, even the Prime Minister has said it was 'broken'. So, no surprise, we've seen an increasing demand for Cheap Private Medical (Health) Insurance (PMI). In my X poll yesterday (Mon), 21% of people have PMI policies, up on the year before.

"PMI is a policy you pay for, so that when you need medical help, you can opt to bypass the NHS. And it covers the cost of private consultations, treatments and operations - be it hips, heart or toes - and sometimes mental health, too. Its main advantages are speed and 'hotel-like' hospital accommodation.

"It isn't cheap. It's a lifestyle choice, unaffordable for many, meaning there's a two-tier system. Costs heavily increase with age, starting from £20ish/mth in your mid-20s to double that or more by mid-50s. Below the team and I will run you through six need-to-knows including:

- Get paid £100 by using a top comparison site.
- New. Can you get Apple Watch Series 11 for £9 via PMI trick?
- Got PMI already? Many can slash costs.

"PS: A more affordable type of medical cover is healthcare cash plans, which cover selected NHS and private costs (eg, dental, physio etc). Here, you pay for treatment, send off the receipt, and it repays you up to an annual limit (some end up in profit)."

The obvious start point is to do a comparison to test the market. With PMI, though, while there seem to be many sites, most are just 'white labels' of one or two underlying comparison engines (ie, the same comparison under the bonnet but with different branding). 

So, our focus is to get you the most lucrative perks available with each, as well as for a third standalone comparison. These engines largely cover the same insurers but all have one or two the others don't...

What to look for when picking a PMI policy... Comparison sites give an overview of cover, but always do a detailed look before signing up. Full help in picking a PMI policy, but do check...

• Which hospitals can you use? Bigger choice equals increased cost. So, once you home in on a policy, check its hospital list and options. This can make a huge difference to cost (and it's really important to look at when comparing policies).
  
  
• What treatments do you want to cover? Options can include improved cover for cancer and mental health. Consider what you'd be happy to use the NHS for and what you'd want treated privately.
  
  
• Full medical underwriting vs moratorium. With full medical underwriting you disclose your medical history at sign-up (via a health questionnaire, a check-up, or access to your medical records), which can take time but ultimately may prove easier. 
  
  The alternative is moratorium cover, where you don't need to do that, but it will automatically exclude pre-existing medical conditions, and each time you claim (for sometimes up to five years), you'll usually have to prove you didn't have the condition before, and your claim will likely be slower.
  
  
• The excess matters. This is the amount you'll pay, either towards each individual claim, or better, towards any treatment in a year (so once you've paid it, there's no excess on further claims that year) - though these tend to have a higher monthly cost. A £37/mth policy with no excess can reduce to £26/mth with a £500 excess. So think about at what level you'd claim.
  
  It's a conceptual choice between whether you're wanting a 'cover everything' policy or only a 'cover big things' policy. One strategy is to combine a very high excess (£1,000+) with self-insuring, where you put cash aside each month in top savings. Then, you can use the NHS for smaller treatments or pay the excess, but it is a backstop for bigger treatments. It works for some but does depend on circumstances, so needs some thinking through.

Vitality Healthcare* is a PMI policy that encourages you to stay fit and active, and if you do, provides serious rewards, such as a near-free Apple Watch, and 50% off gyms. For some younger people, if you'd have spent money on those anyway, the perks may come close to covering the PMI fees. The key perks are...

• New. Apple Watch Series 11. It's just upgraded its Apple Watch offer to the latest Series 11 model (which launched in Sept). Take out a new PMI policy with Vitality and you can get the £369 Series 11 watch for an upfront payment of just £9 (or the SE watch for £1). 
  
  What you pay for it after that depends on how many 'Activity Points' you earn - at the top level, which is 12,500 steps for five days a week, you DON'T PAY A PENNY MORE. Even at lower activity levels, there are decent savings.
  
  PS: For inspiration on getting your steps in, see Martin's 'I did 24,703 steps a day in 2024' blog.
  
  
• Up to 50% off many Virgin, Nuffield and PureGym monthly fees, even for existing members. These are straight discounts, not linked to activity. While they're off the full list price (which many can bring down a bit by negotiating, see cheap gyms), this is still likely to be a big discount, and works even if you're already a member, eg, the Virgin gym in Sheffield's listed price is £85/mth, but you could get it for £42ish/mth.

There are also discounts for Caffè Nero, Samsung and others.

How to get Vitality. You've got a choice. Go direct to Vitality* or go via the comparison links above, which all include it, to get the extra cashback/voucher instead (and a comparison is always worth doing).

PMI prices usually rise each year at renewal. And the 'existing customers can't be charged more than new customers going via the same channel' rule for car and home insurance doesn't apply to PMI. So costs can escalate quickly. But there are ways you can slash them...

- A comparison will often reveal BIG savings. Use the links above to check. And if you've never claimed on your PMI, switch away!

Yet if you've had treatments on the policy within the last five years, and the issue reoccurs within two years, a new provider will likely exclude treating it, as it's a pre-existing condition (some even say more than two years, so do check policy details). If that's an issue, you may effectively be locked in to your current provider as long as you want treatment on those issues.

- Alternatively, see our tips to haggle with your existing provider at renewal. As Tony, who emailed earlier this year, did: "My PMI price has risen steeply over the past few years. Thanks to a mention in your email, I tried the comparison sites you recommend and got a quote from another company for just over half the cost. I phoned my provider to cancel, but after checking that I had a like-for-like quote, they applied 'loyalty discounts' and reduced my renewal price by 43%. Thank you, MSE, for saving me a four-figure sum over the next year!"

PMI via your employer can be substantially cheaper, even if your employer doesn't contribute (and some do). The issue comes if you claim for treatment and then decide to leave your employer. So, before starting a policy, it's worth asking two key questions about what'd happen if you left. Can you...

- Continue with that healthcare plan on the same terms? 
- If not, can you at least continue on costlier terms as an existing customer?

If not, the problem is all your previous treatments are excluded as pre-existing conditions, and each time you claim for at least the first two years for other conditions you may need to go through the rigmarole of proving you haven't had that condition before.

To put it more plainly - you could leave a corporate Bupa policy after a decade, for example, get a new Bupa policy, but then be excluded from conditions the corporate policy had paid out for. And even though it's known you for a decade, you still have to prove for each new claim that you hadn't had it before, as if it didn't know you.

If you're confused or have pre-existing conditions that make things difficult, get assistance from a member of the snappily-titled Association of Medical Insurers and Intermediaries (AMII).

These brokers can answer questions about cover, particular insurers' records, rules and more. Most are free to you, because they take commission from insurers if you get a policy. Though check if, and how, they'll charge before you get the advice.

Picking the right policy is only half the journey - it needs to deliver when you need to claim, too. But it's more difficult to predict how it'll perform.

So, it's worth knowing, like all insurance, that these are regulated policies where you have a legal right to be TREATED FAIRLY. If not, make a formal complaint, and if it still doesn't stack up, you can take it to the free Financial Ombudsman Service to adjudicate.