CS Healthcare HealthBridge
HealthBridge is a budget private medical insurance (PMI) policy from the specialist mutual CS Healthcare. It is designed to bridge the gap between what the NHS offers and what people can afford to pay for PMI and, within an annual maximum benefit of £15,000, pays for:
Consultations up to £1,000 a year.
Diagnostic investigations, scans and tests.
Pre-operative tests.
Surgeons’ and anaesthetists’ fees.
Surgery and theatre fees.
Hospital accommodation, nursing and intensive care costs.
Medical admissions and related services.
Specialist fees for medical admission.
Post-operative consultations, investigations, physiotherapy, tests and dressings.
Up to £350 a year for outpatient therapies.
Up to £500 a year for psychiatric consultations and counselling.
Up to £150 a year for appliances and aids after an inpatient admission.
New child bonus of £100.
Nursing at home care benefit of up to £500 a year.
Customers get an NHS Support Allowance of up to £2,400 if free NHS rather than private treatment is chosen.
All maximum benefits shown are per person per year. The plan also includes a 24/7 Lifeline nurse-led health advice line, which includes a doctor callback service.
Underwriting is through a 5/2/2 year rolling moratorium and all policies include a 15% co-payment, which is capped of £250 per person per policy year and applies to most benefits. Heart and cancer treatment is not covered, nor is emergency treatment.
A family of four with two 35 year old parents and two children under age 12 living in the South West, Midlands or Wales would pay £56.66 a month, compared to over £180 a month for its comprehensive Your Choice product, CS Healthcare says.
Comment: CS Healthcare has recognised that for many individuals and families, ‘comprehensive’ PMI is just too expensive, regardless of how much they might value the cover it offers. To remedy that, HealthBridge is designed to bridge the gap between what people want and what they might afford.
It achieves that by cutting out heart and cancer cover, applying a mandatory co-payment and cutting other expensive but perhaps less useful benefits. The result, according to CS Healthcare’s analysis, is PMI that can be just a third of the cost for some customers. That ‘discount’ will vary based on a range of factors, but that kind of difference should open up PMI to a lot more people. What about the loss of heart and cancer cover though? For many people, the NHS can now be relied on to provide these important but potentially hugely expensive treatments. If not, CS offers more comprehensive cover elsewhere – albeit at much higher cost.
Overall, the plan presents a good compromise and is cleverly put together (based on real customer input, CS claims).
It is not available to everyone though. But, if you or your family (going up and down a generation) is or has worked in the public or not for profit sectors, then you can qualify to become a customer. If not, sorry, but you need to look elsewhere – or get a relative to change their job…
Plus points: Affordable PMI; Keeps the NHS for what it is (arguably) best at (heart, cancer and emergency treatment); Mandatory co-payment (capped at a reasonable £250 a year) to keep costs low; Covers what most people would most value.
Not so plus points: Less comprehensive than the best PMI: Customers need to factor in the co-payment; Excludes heart and cancer treatment; Overall annual cap of a lowish £15K; Only available to those who (or their family) qualifies for membership.
Website: http://www.cshealthcare.co.uk.
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 8. Overall: 7.5. Silver
Tags: PMI; CS Healthcare