Denplan Lucent
Denplan’s new Lucent plan is designed to offer group dental insurance at low premiums. The plan comes in six variants from Lucent 1, which just pays for 100% of NHS dental costs up to £600 a year, up to Lucent 6, which pays up to £2,750 a year. Lucents 2-6 also add benefits for individual private treatments e.g. Lucent 6 pays up to £30 for a normal examination (for comparison, Lucent 2 limits this to £11), up to £63 for scale and polish (£23), up to £73 (£23) for fillings, up to £308 (£138) for crowns, and up to £40 (£15) for a single extraction (or £65 [£40.00] for a surgical extraction). As is usual with this type of cover, most treatment types are broken down in various more specific treatments, each having its own limit.
All plans also include up to £12,000 for mouth cancer treatment (90 day initial waiting period, and only one course of treatment is funded, which must be within 18 months of diagnosis). Also included is an NHS cash benefit of £50 a night and dentist call-out fees up to £50 per incident (max £100 a year).
Plus points: Six price/benefit points to suit budget; wide range of benefits including specific benefit for mouth cancer treatment; Denplan is the big brand and market leader.
Not so plus points: In some cases, even on Lucent 6 plans, the benefit payable may be less than the actual treatment cost; mouth cancer benefit only covers treatment costs rather than providing a CI style cash lump sum on diagnosis. Other dental insurance plans do not provide this either, but it would be good to include some form of cost saving benefit or help service for the growing list of non-insurable cosmetic treatments many people now choose to have.
Website: http://www.denplan.co.uk.
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 7. Overall: 7.5. Silver.