Westfield Health Access Surgery and Access Surgery Premier
Westfield Health’s existing hospital treatment insurance (HTI) plan Access Surgery has now been revised to become available to consumers and to voluntary employee benefits schemes.
The plan is available in two versions – Access Surgery and Access Surgery Premier.
The most comprehensive benefits are in Access Surgery Premier and this plan offers:
Payment for most surgical procedures. This specifically excludes heart or cancer related treatment, although treatment for suspected cancer up to diagnosis is covered. Westfield splits procedures into ten bands, each with its own cash limit. If the limit is exceeded (although they are regularly reviewed) the customer must pay the balance.
If the customer chooses free NHS treatment instead, they can claim a smaller cash payment instead.
Up to three surgical procedures a year are covered.
A maximum lifetime benefit of £250,000.
An optional £1,000 pot to pay for outpatient treatment.
Customers can save even more by choosing to have a £100 annual excess.
A two year rolling moratorium is used to exclude pre-existing conditions.
The lower cost Access Surgery plan is broadly similar but offers:
Treatment for 63 common non-urgent surgical procedures.
There are four medical bands and classifications, each with its own limit.
The maximum lifetime limit is £100,000.
Someone age 31-35 could pay £24.08 a month for Access Surgery Premier with outpatient cover and a £100 excess. For the basic Access Surgery plan that would drop to £15.30 a month.
Comment: Back in 2012, Westfield Health took over the old Patient Choice portfolio and so entered the PMI space – albeit through hospital treatment insurance rather than conventional ‘full’ PMI cover. It did so both to expand its proposition and to challenge the conventional PMI market which, some would argue, is slowly pricing itself out of existence.
This new plan takes it into the consumer and voluntary space at price points that noticeably undercut budget PMI let alone full cover PMI. Any product that does that can usually only do so by cutting benefits too and this plan is no exception.
However, the simple fact is that for a great many people who would like PMI cover it is just too expensive. Moreover, it tends to go up in price each year (much) faster than either prices or wages inflation so, even if you can afford it now, you may not be able to do so in a few years’ time. So what has Westfield’s track record on pricing been since entering the HTI market in 2012? Well, apart from rises in IPT (and yup, there’s another one on the way…) its prices haven’t gone up. I’ll repeat that – apart from tax changes, prices have not gone up since 2012. Wow… Of course, that’s no guarantee going forward, but it does rather suggest the model is sustainable and Westfield clearly knows what it’s doing.
So far so good but there are limitations to take into account. The plan excludes cancer and heart treatment (although cancer is covered up to diagnosis), cover is limited to a pretty large list of procedures (full marks for setting those out on the website and the list is regularly updated), outpatient cover is both optional and limited and there’s an overall cover limit. The budget version offers lower premiums but even less cover. Nor is there a lot of product choices available and there are no third party or helpline style benefits either,
To a large extent that fairly long list of downsides is inevitable (you can’t get a quart out of a pint pot) so, for many people, it could prove to be more than acceptable. Bottom line – the price is right and the cover may well be too.
Moreover, if the customer already has (or will consider) having a cash plan and critical illness (CI) cover too, a lot of the downsides are not just now irrelevant, but the customer can end up with more, but different – cover and probably still save money too. Moreover, both CI and HCP premiums tend to be fixed or increase slowly, so the solution is sustainable too.
For the broker or adviser, such packages are often unpopular – they take more time to sell and the relative return can be poor. But, such solutions can also be built up over time if budget is an issue and many people already have one or other add-on anyway.
In conclusion, if your client wants full refund PMI benefits and can afford the premiums go for that and ignore this plan. But for the much bigger audience who can’t afford that, this new plan could be a realistic option. Moreover, it could actually help grow the personal PMI market - and that’s not something we’ve seen to any great extent in decades now.
Plus points: A lower cost alternative to PMI but still offering many of the benefits; Excellent track record on prices, which suggests strong sustainability going forward; Range of options to cut costs further; Ideal for packaging a wider solution – perhaps to include an HCP and CI cover.
Not so plus points: Provides narrower cover than conventional PMI; Excludes cancer and heart treatment (but covers cancer up to the diagnosis); Limited optional outpatient cover; Annual maximum cover limit; Limited to just one excess option; No third party or helpline type benefits; Adding an HCP and CI cover means more work for the adviser; Westfield chooses the fixed price package (although the customer’s wishes can be taken into account).
Website: http://www.westfieldhealth.com
Rating (max 10): Innovation: 8. Overall: 8. Gold
Tags: PMI; Westfield