Is Private Medical Insurance Expensive?

Let’s be honest: we all like the idea of “going private”.

Maybe we’ve had a glimpse of private healthcare at some point in the past, outsourced from an overworked NHS department like maternity care, or perhaps we know someone who gets all of their care via one of the large health companies and raves about it.

Either way, we can all agree that it’s something that, in an ideal world, we’d like.

After all, what’s not to love?

Avoid waiting around for months to get an operation that’ll improve the quality of your life.

​Avoid two-week delay between feeling ill and getting an appointment with your GP.

Enjoy a private room with TVs while you convalesce, higher quality food, a choice of location for any care that you need and en-suite bathrooms, the list just goes on and on.

So, we all like the idea of private healthcare, but plenty of us don’t have it.

Why?

Well, in short, because there’s a preconception that it’s expensive.

Is private medical insurance expensive?

Well, as with any question around expense, the answer is “it depends”.

What’s expensive to one person isn’t to another, and each of us values things in different ways.

For someone without much spare income, even an additional £20 can seem like a stretch, whereas someone at the other end of the spectrum may not even notice an additional £200 added to their expenditure.

As a 25-year-old, you can expect to pay around £63 a month for your private medical insurance premium, while a 50-year-old will pay in the region of £113 each month.

Insurers often offer favourable premiums for multi-person policies too.

As an example, a 30-year-old couple’s policy is likely to be around £125, while a four-person family, with two 35-year old parents and two children under 13 is around £200 a month.

Is that expensive?  Well, it’s up to you to decide on that.

For people who choose to pay for private healthcare, the money is very much regarded as an investment, not a cost.

They recognise the value of being able to see a doctor whenever they want, jump queues on any surgery that might be needed and have their own room if ever in the hospital. The value derived from those things is worth more than the monthly premium.

If it weren’t, they wouldn’t pay for it.

If you’re yet to decide whether private medical insurance is for you, then it’s something you need to decide: how much is it worth to have the peace of mind that comes from being completely “sorted” when it comes to healthcare?

What value do you place on not having to worry about getting to see a doctor, or in the fact that you know you won’t be stuck languishing on a waiting list for six months while your condition worsens?

There’s no “one size fits all” answer to these questions, but the important thing is that you come up with your answer.

And if the value you place on all of these things is relative to (or less than) the cost of your policy, then you’ve got your answer – it is worth it.

Spending priorities – where should medical insurance sit?

Maybe you’re not sure about the value though.

Maybe you look at a £70 or £80 bill as a cost that you simply don’t want to add to your monthly budget.

And that’s your prerogative.

But if that’s where you’re at, it might be worth considering some of your other expenditure, and comparing the value, you derive from that.

Is your daily Starbucks coffee worth more than guaranteed, first-class healthcare on tap?

Are your meals out in restaurants more critical than ensuring that you and your family have access to instant, high-quality healthcare?

Only you know the answers to these questions, but if you’re not sure about them, it could well be worth you considering them.

If you conclude that private health insurance isn’t for you, then so be it.

But if you don’t investigate, you’ll never know.

The good news is that it’s easier than you’d imagine getting an idea of how much your monthly premium will cost you, and get absolute clarity on the value you’ll be getting for that investment.

All you need to do is fill in a few details, and you’ll get an instant indicator of the kind of investment you’ll need to make to get protected and ensure swift, premium-level healthcare.