Impartial reviews on the latest products and how they can impact consumers.
September 2010 Partnership: Other
Partnership’s Care Plan Payment Option (CPPO) is a fixed rate loan that enables people to fund their long term care, without having to sell their family home. The loan has a fixed rate of 6.99% and is secured against the family home. The mortgage loan is then used to purchase a Partnership Care Plan, which is a single premium plan that provides a guaranteed income for life. If those payments are made direct to a registered care provider, the income is tax free. The CPPO can be for a lesser amount, e.g. if the customer wants to use some of…
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September 2010 Westfield Health: PMI
Health 365 is a new online direct to consumer health insurance product offering simple, quick and affordable health cover from £15 a month. Health365 is a new sub-brand for leading health cash plan provider Westfield Health and is its venture into online insurance. The plan itself has four modules and two premiums levels (min and max), which apply to the Core and Therapies benefits (the other two are fixed). Reimbursement is 100% up to the policy limit and customers must choose at least one module in addition to the Core module: • Customers must choose Core Health Cover. This pays…
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July 2010 PMI
PatientChoice has recently renamed its products as Hospital Treatment Plans and has now introduced a new top level plan, which is called Premier. Essentially, PatientChoice plans provide a cash lump sum to pay for specific treatments rather than take the usual PMI (private medical insurance) approach of indemnifying hospital treatment costs. As such, customers can make a ‘profit’ by shopping around to find the best value treatment but may find that some treatments covered by conventional PMI are not covered. Premier differs from PatientChoice’s other plans by providing an additional annual £1,000 pot to cover diagnostic tests and specialist consultant…
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July 2010 WPA: PMI
WPA has introduced a new range of individual PMI plans. The first two are: • Flexible Health. Available in Essentials, Premier and Elite forms, the plan in its Premier guise covers in-patient and limited out-patient cover with a choice of four co-payment levels and optional cancer, advanced cancer drugs and dental cover plus optional premium hospitals, higher out-patient limits and emergency cover abroad. • XS Health. Aimed at non-smokers aged 25 and below. Has a £1,500 annual excess but costs just £59.70 a year, making it an ideal buy for parents for their adult children (who may not be covered…
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July 2010 National Friendly: PMI
National Friendly’s new One Fund is a health cash plan (HCP) that adopts the concept of a single large annual pot of money rather than separate pots for each benefit type. The exceptions being optical and health screening, which each have lower annual limits. There are six premium level options— £10, £12, £14, £16, £18 and £20 a month per person. They provide overall annual limits across all benefits of from £720 to £1,440. Within that, there are six benefit categories, each of which is subject to an annual excess of £40. The six categories are (figures shown are for…
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