Types of cover
There are 10 main categories of private health insurance:
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Packages
Where you have a fixed range of cover, with limited choice.
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Choice of Cover
Where you can choose to build a policy from a wide range of options.
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Limited Cover
Where cover is for a small number of illnesses/events.
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Shared Risk
Where you can drastically reduce the price by sharing the risk with the insurer.
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Special Cover Plans
Ideas and innovations that cover selected risks, or are just unusual, such as:
Recent developments in health insurance cover
The main attraction of private medical insurance is the degree of patient choice it offers. There is a wide variety of covers to choose from. If you have individual medical insurance you can choose where, when and how you are treated. Some individual health insurance providers limit the choice to specified hospitals.
In the last few years there has also been a widening of the choice of individual medical insurance product on offer. Once a "one size fits all" approach was all that was available. That was replaced by budget, standard and luxury covers. Now, Individual health insurance providers have developed mix-and-match self choice products, self pay and high excess options, limited cover products. We also now have, among others, health trusts, health funds, cover for parents, cover for the self-employed, policies rewarding healthier lifestyles, policies offering treatment overseas.
Increasingly, private medical insurance is also offering preventative medicine, GP and nurse helplines, health screening, fitness and health advice, and even discounts at health clubs and gyms.
You can often add other insurances to your private medical insurance. These include health cash, critical illness, life, income protection, travel and dental.
Our aim is to help guide you through this maze of individual health insurance policies.
