What Will Affect My Premiums?
A common, and sensible, question to ask when you are considering insurance relates to the subject of premiums, namely what will cause them to rise. It should be noted that when it comes to private medical insurance, premiums are likely to rise at a higher level than inflation and this is for a variety of reasons. Advances in medicine and methods used to combat and diagnose conditions, new drugs becoming available, new technologies that can be implemented and an increase in the numbers of people making claims on their insurance are all factors that lead to rises in premiums.
Advances in medicine have allowed doctors to implement new ways of treating patients and with this new methods have arisen. Because these methods are more advanced it has naturally led to an increase in the costs of such methods, with new technologies and tests becoming widely available privately. So the technology implementing in diagnosing treatment has advanced, and so has the technology implemented in surgery.
There are also regular advances and changes in the drugs that are available for treatment by medical professionals. These could include Avastin or Herceptin, which are both used in the treatment of cancer.
But changes in the ways that healthcare is implemented, whilst clearly leading to rises in premiums, are not the only way in which this occurs. Rises in premiums can also occur because of changes in the patients seeking treatment. For example it is no secret that as we get older we are more likely to require and seek medical treatment, whether it is for a hip replacement surgery (which can cost as much as £6,000) or other treatments. As such different premiums can be charges to those of different ages.
What Options Do I Have to Ease These Costs?
There are many things that patients can do to reduce their premiums, from seeking treatment from the NHS when the waiting list is less than 12 weeks to paying for part of the private treatment themselves. You could also pay an excess on your policy – whereby you pay the first £100 to £500 (for example) of any treatment. Likewise you could opt for a policy co-insurance whereby the insurance holder pays 10% of any claim and then the provider pays the balance prior to the insurance holder paying an agreed annual amount. Other options include choosing a specific range of hospitals or reducing the levels of benefits.