Private Medical Insurance

Private Medical Insurance (PMI) is designed to cover the cost of private medical treatment for ‘acute conditions’ that start after your policy begins.

PMI is available at a range of different levels of cover at various premiums designed to meet the needs of different customers. For example, you can have choices around the types of treatment covered, what level of cover will apply to those treatments, the location where your treatment is provided and the contribution you might be willing to make to the treatment cost (called ‘the excess’).

Cover usually includes:

► The cost of hospital admission

► Diagnostic tests, such as MRI and CT scans

► Surgery

► The costs of seeing a consultant

► Hospital accommodation and nursing care

► Cancer drugs - some polices will include drugs that are not available on the NHS

Cover may also include:

► Outpatient consultations

► Mental health treatment options

► Complimentary therapies

► Physiotherapy and chiropody

PMI can complement the services of the NHS by providing cover for the cost of prompt access to private treatment, and access to cancer drugs and services not always available on the NHS.

Private medical treatment is designed for ‘acute conditions’ which start after your policy begins. An acute condition is a disease, illness or injury that is likely to respond quickly to the treatment that aims to return you to the state of health you were in immediately before suffering the disease, illness or injury, or which leads to your full recovery.

Your insurer will typically not cover ‘chronic conditions’. These are diseases, illnesses or injuries that have one or more of the following characteristics: needs long-term monitoring, control or relief of symptoms, requires rehabilitation, continues indefinitely, and has no known cure or is likely to come back.