Health insurance

[thunderlizard]

Evening all,

I'm looking into getting private health insurance. Any sage advice from any of you who may have been through the process? Anything I should watch out for? so far I've just gone as far as getting 4 or 5 online quotes from various providers.

[SandyDown]

Evening all,

I'm looking into getting private health insurance. Any sage advice from any of you who may have been through the process? Anything I should watch out for? so far I've just gone as far as getting 4 or 5 online quotes from various providers.

I have health insurance with Freedom

Dental with HSA

[Board Game Geek]

<serious mode on>

Yes thunder, and I promise this will be worth it.

When you have the initial form to fill in detailing your past medical history, you will probably mention the most serious stuff. No one can remember EVERYTHING since they were a nipper.

After all, a tingling in the knee 4 years ago hardly seems important does it ?

WRONG.

If you end up making a claim, the insurer will get a complete medical report from your Surgery, and they will fish for details like this, however small or insignificant. Anything to help them avoid paying your claim.

I know, because I have gone through the same process with an insurer.

They claimed that I had not informed them on a tingling in my knee, when I took out the policy. It was 4 years before and the Doctor wrote it off as something trivial. It went away after a few days anyway.

They also claimed that on the application form, there were 2 more things I didn't mention at the time. One was 1 year before the policy started, the other 3 years. Again, both trivial, so much so that I had forgotten about them when the salesman was in my house, wanting me to sign, saying "put down the important stuff...ear-aches are trivial mate".

They also claimed that I ticked a box that said "I have nothing else to disclose that is important".

I got them to send me my hand filled form of 5 years ago to check to see what I did write.

Lo and behold, I DID NOT tick a box saying I had nothing else to declare. I even added additional information that I thought pertinent at the time.

I challenged them that they had directly lied to me, the mistake of which, had I accepted, would have made me close my claim. I was prepared to take legal action, when they caved in.

(I didn't inform them throughout any of the process that I work for the NHS and my friends work in other insurance companies, who helped my keep several steps ahead of my insurer's tricks.

Anyway, enough waffle.

This is the most important bit I can advise anyone on taking out an insurance policy.

Ask that the surgery provide a complete patient summary in hard copy. Photocopy it and send a copy with your application to the insurer. Add a note saying


"As you can appreciate, there is not enough room on your forms to detail everything, hence I have provided you a FULL and COMPLETE medical history, on which to assess my application for insurance. This is provided to make sure that I do not fail to inform you of anything that may be used as NON-DISCLOSURE against me at a later date during the term of the policy"

GP Surgeries in the UK typically use any of the following Clinical Systems, all of which can print out a complete summary.
(SystmOne, Torex, Emis, Vision)

I promise, a £10 summary sent with your application, will be worth its weight in gold, and closes several loopholes that the insurer's will use to wriggle out of it.

Good luck !

ps...if there are any of you reading this who are now worried that you may have forgotten something on your initial application for health or critical illness insurance, I promise you now, it WILL be used against you if you have to make a claim.

Please, do yourself a favour, get a full copy of your medical history, check it against the form you submitted (if you still have it : if not request a copy from the insurer), and submit it to the insurer ASAP as an update to their records, and as additional information. They may revise your premium, but at least you will now be paying something for something, as opposed to paying something for nothing when the time comes to make a claim.

Imagine how gutted you would feel, to discover that your claim for Cancer is invalid, just because you failed to disclose a hernia operation 5 years before the policy started. You've paid £40 a month, and now when you could really do with £200K, it's taken away from you. It does happen. Don't think for a moment that hernia has nothing you do with Cancer and they cannot make that distinction. They can and they do.

[thunderlizard]

sterling stuff BGG!

Exactly the kind of thing I could do with knowing. Forewarned is forearmed!

tl

[TykeMerc]

Excellent advice BGG, thanks.

[Board Game Geek]

You're both welcome.

Having taken on my insurer and won, I do have a bee in my bonnet about the way they WILL try and wriggle out of paying critical illness policies.

If I can help others avoid the stress and hassle I suffered, it's worth it.

[TimberWolf]

Just goes to show GPs are not only useless, but seeing one could be detrimental to ones health. Actually it shows if you aren't ill enough to go straight to hospital, just skip the GP stage and wait for things to either get better or worse. 99.99999% of the time it will be the former. GPs are useless, and now it seems details held with them aren't confidential either and could even be used against you The whole health system is like a giant parasite preying on you gladly paying hosts...

[EternalOptimist]

If the insurer can get a complete medical summary about me, who else can ? and why dont they get one at the time of the application for insurance, to avoid any 'misunderstandings' ?

[ThomasSoerensen]

If the insurer can get a complete medical summary about me, who else can ? and why dont they get one at the time of the application for insurance, to avoid any 'misunderstandings' ?

Because they do not want to avoid misunderstandings.
They want to use it against you.

Simple really.

[SandyDown]

BGG what you are talkign about is life insurance or mortgage protection insurance, not health insurance !!!!!!!!

health insurance/dental is just for paying for medical treatments i.e. if you need an emergency op you don't have to wait on the NHS list.