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Health insurance : Hot topics

In "Hot topics", Ian Youngman, Private Healthcare UK's health insurance writer, examines some of the key issues that affect health insurance coverage and premiums.

Instant quote, instant documents for life insurance If a small New Zealand life insurer can do it, why don't UK insurers do it? Web sites with instant quotes are common, although too often the price is only an indication until the insurer has your completed proposal form. Web sites where you can get your policy emailed to you as a full legal document, instantly, are as rare as hen's teeth. You can do it for airline and theatre tickets, and other...
Insurers fail to comply with the new ABI Statement of Best Practice on critical illness Although insurers have had a year to comply with the new ABI Statement of Best Practice on critical illness, many have failed or just scraped under the deadline of Ist May 2007. To be fair, several leading insurers have amended their wording well in advance. Most of these have also gone beyond the minimum requirements and added cover for a wider range of illnesses. Some insurers have still to...
Crackdown on screening proposed Insurers offering private medical insurance and health cash plans have had a shock. Health screening is increasingly seen as a vital component in helping people be pro-active in keeping themselves healthy. Government advisors want to add health screening to the list of industries it closely regulates. The National Screening Committee is considering how best to regulate the industry. It is worried...
Freedom to choose private medical insurance When choosing which private medical insurance to buy it is easy to concentrate on price and width of cover, and miss an important area where insurers disagree. At one extreme, insurers will allow you to be treated wherever you want in the UK. Some will even allow treatment overseas - a topic we will return to soon. At the other extreme are those who will not only tell you where you will be...
Regulation of the travel insurance industry If you buy travel insurance from a travel insurer, insurance intermediary, or anyone else who sells insurance as their business, they are subject to strict rules and regulations controlled by the Financial Services Authority. If you buy your travel insurance from a travel agent as part of the travel package, the travel agent is not regulated in the same way. There is a heated debate as to whether...
Income Protection Task Force - damp squib? When most of us see the words; task force, committee, and white paper, - we turn to something more interesting like the sports pages or watching paint dry. Like Government, certain sections of the insurance industry love their talking shops and progress at snail like speed through industry consensus. The Income Protection Task Force (IPTF) was set up to find ways of promoting Income protection...
Local or international health insurance cover for expatriates? UK citizens working or living abroad, appreciate the case for buying private medical insurance. The number of policyholders is increasing at around 15 per cent a year, despite premium rises above inflation.One reason is compulsion - governments are increasingly demanding that expats show proof of valid private medical insurance with their visa application or at the port of entry. Abu Dhabi and...
After the High Court rules against Bupa on Irish health insurance risk equalization - are expat covers legal? If you are, or are considering, working or living as an expatriate in Ireland- you need to be aware of the current state of play on health insurance.To be perfectly honest, there are now more questions than answers. The Irish High Court has upheld the risk equalisation scheme in health insurance funding, which requires market leader, the State-owned VHI Healthcare to be subsidised by other...
Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) - A rip off? The investigations The Office of Fair Trading has said that consumers are suffering from overpriced Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). The OFT has referred it to the Competition Commission, on the basis that many consumers are failed by PPI-insurance which gives them a poor deal and often less protection than they think.The regulator of the entire financial services industry, the FSA, has only...
Payment protection insurance: Is the new Post Office product good value? The Post Office has launched payment protection insurance. Lifestyle Protection is designed to be more flexible and fairer than standard PPI products. Alan Cook, managing director at the Post Office, says: "There are widespread concerns that people taking out PPI are unfairly treated. We want to change that." Lifestyle Protection can insure monthly credit and loan repayments of between £100 and...
Health insurance : Can supermarkets sell health insurance? Many reports of the launch of Tesco into individual private medical insurance suggest this is the first time a supermarket has tried this type of insurance The truth is that both ASDA and Sainsbury's , both of whom offer a wide range of insurance products, failed dismally in attempts to sell health cash and budget private medical insurance. A long list of retailers also tried and failed. Boots...
Smoking and health insurance : How does it affect your premium? If you are a smoker, how does it affect your healthcare insurance premium? Where should you go to get the best rate? By 2007, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland will all have bans on smoking in public places. There will be great differences among the four as to where smoking is permitted. This confusion extends into health care insurance, as insurers differ in how they view smoking....
Medical insurance in Spain: A medical helpline for expats Spain is Britain's favourite location when it comes to buying a holiday home in Europe and the Spanish Ministry of Tourism expects a further one million foreigners to establish homes on beautiful coastlines during the next six years. For those seeking sun, sea and sand, Spain has a great deal to offer but not speaking the language can prove a difficult barrier for some British expatriates when...
Hypertension treatment : New health insurance scheme for sufferers Saga have introduced optional health insurance cover for people suffering from hypertension and undergoing high blood pressure treatment. Hypertension (high blood pressure) will affect around 30% of all adults at some time in their lives and more than half of all people over 60 are diagnosed with the condition, which increases the risk of heart disease and strokes. Hypertension affects a great...
The government will not pay your mortgage if you cannot Millions of Britons think the government will pay their mortgage if they are unable to, new research on mortgage payment protection reveals. According to figures from Lincoln Financial Group, some 3.85 million UK residents believe the government will help them out with mortgage payments if they become unemployed. But mortgage relief was, in fact, ended some eleven years ago. Millions of...

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