Health insurance broker reviews are usually read for one decision: whether to hand a particular firm your medical history and let it arrange your cover. Star ratings help with part of it. A review describes how one customer found the firm; it cannot tell you whether the firm is authorised, whose permissions it trades under, how it is paid or which insurers it cannot quote, and those four facts shape everything it says.

If you would rather test a firm straight away, the form on this page is a route to one: a broker, FCA-authorised, able to price several insurers for your own circumstances without charging you.

That broker is how this site is paid: it may pay us for each introduction, so we are no neutral judge of brokers. No broker is named, scored or rated on this page, the one we introduce included. What follows applies to every broker in the same way.

What a review of a broker is really about

The insurer writes the policy and decides the claims. A broker's part is the choosing, the explaining and the application, and with some firms renewals and help with a stalled claim afterwards. A broker review is a review of that service, and the useful ones say which part they describe.

Three stages get written about, worth very different amounts:

  • The sale. How quickly someone rang back, how friendly they were, how cheap the quote looked. Any customer can describe it, and it shows the firm is pleasant to buy from, but nobody yet knows whether the policy was the right one.
  • The first renewal. Whether the firm looked at the market again when the price went up, or let the notice go through unchallenged. This tests whether the broker does anything once it has been paid.
  • A claim that went wrong. Whether the firm picked up the phone when the insurer queried a pre-authorisation or declined something, and whether the underwriting it chose held up. This is the job a broker exists to do, and many customers never reach it, so there is less of it to read.

Hundreds of glowing sale-stage reviews, with none about renewals or claims, show you a sales process and little more.

Separate, too, whose decision a review is about. One blaming a broker for a refused claim is describing an insurer's decision, since a broker cannot refuse a claim. It may still be fair criticism if the firm never explained the exclusions or chose an underwriting basis that left the condition uncovered; a review drawing that line is worth ten that do not. For who does what, see what a health insurance broker is and does.

Four things no review will show you

The facts that matter most about a broker are not opinions, so customer feedback cannot supply them. Two are on public record and two you have to ask for; check them before the reviews.

Whether the name being reviewed is the firm on the register

The FCA's Financial Services Register is free to search by name. As we understand it, an entry shows a firm's status, its reference number, any trading names it uses and, for an authorised firm, the activities it has permission to carry on. Check three things against the reviews you have been reading:

  • The name. Reviews are filed under a brand, and a brand may be a trading name of a company called something else. If you cannot match the reviewed name to a register entry, the reviews may belong to another business, or the business may not be on the register at all.
  • The status. A firm may be authorised in its own right or be an appointed representative of another firm, its principal, which as we understand it answers for what the representative does. Then the principal's name is the one to note, and it may appear nowhere in the reviews.
  • The permissions. Look for permissions covering insurance, and ask the firm if the register's wording leaves you unsure, rather than assuming that a firm advising on mortgages or investments can also arrange health cover.

The register is the FCA's own record; prefer it to anything a firm, a review site or this page says. What each status means for a buyer, and the disclosures a firm makes about itself before you buy, are set out in our comparison of brokers and agents.

How the firm is paid, and which insurers it cannot quote

Reviews mention neither except by accident, so the firm itself is the place to ask. Most brokers are paid commission by the insurer you choose, some charge a fee, and each works with a set of insurers, wide or narrow. A customer pleased with a quote cannot know which insurer was never shown, so ask the firm. What a health insurance broker costs you takes the payment question apart.

Weighing what you read: five tests for any broker review

No score makes a broker safe to use, and an average out of five hides most of what you need. Read a dozen reviews slowly, the critical ones first, and ask five things of them.

  1. Does the reviewer's situation look like yours? A first policy in good health, a long-held policy moved with a medical history, and a scheme for a small firm's staff are three different jobs. Praise from the first tells the third very little.
  2. Is it the firm being reviewed, or one adviser? Where a review names the adviser who helped, it speaks well of that person; in a firm of any size you may be handed to someone else.
  3. When, and how, were the reviews collected? Some platforms let a business invite customers to post, and an invitation sent the day a policy starts produces reviews of the sale. A run of first-week reviews says little about renewals or claims, however warm.
  4. Is there a pattern in the criticism? One angry review about a declined claim may be about the insurer, or a case nobody could have won. The same complaint from several people about the firm's own conduct (say, renewals waved through, calls that would not stop, or silence once the policy was sold) is a better guide than any single story.
  5. How does the firm reply? Where firms can answer reviews, read the replies to the bad ones. A reply that takes up the point and offers to look into it shows how a complaint of yours might be handled; so does one that argues with the customer in public.

For complaints that went further, the Financial Ombudsman Service publishes complaints data about named businesses: disputes that reached it, not satisfaction, and as we understand it only for firms above a certain volume, so a small broker may not appear at all. Reading reviews of an insurer is covered in our page on health insurance reviews.

Reviews can narrow a shortlist; they cannot finish the job. Whichever firm you are left with still has to show you its panel and quote on your own details, and asking costs nothing. If you want the broker we introduce on that shortlist, the form on this page adds it.

What to ask a broker once you have read its reviews

Reviews work best as a source of questions: these take what you read, and what you could not, to the firm itself, in the order a first call reaches them. The general checks for any broker, reviews or not, are on our main page on using a broker.

  1. What is your firm reference number, and what name will be on my documents? Match both to the register and to the brand you saw reviewed, before you discuss your health.
  2. Are you authorised yourselves, or trading as someone's appointed representative? If the second, look up the principal's name too, on the register and among reviews.
  3. What did you do at the last renewal for a client in my position? Best asked where the reviews describe only buying. Ask for steps, not assurances: what they re-quoted and what they told the client.
  4. If my insurer queries a pre-authorisation or turns down a claim, what will you actually do? The answer marks where the firm's help stops, which is what a claim-stage review would have shown you.
  5. Who will look after my policy once it starts? Worth asking when the praise you read was for one named adviser.
  6. Which insurers can you not place me with, and how are you paid if I go ahead? The two facts no reviewer was in a position to check.

A well-reviewed firm that is vague on the first two has told you more than its reviews did.

Reviews of the broker this site introduces

We do not name that firm here, so you cannot read its reviews or its register entry before sending the form. Close that gap in order once it makes contact: take its name and reference number, check the register, read what reviews you can find, then ask it the six questions above. A page about checking brokers should not exempt the one paying us.

Broker reviews: short answers

What do you know about the broker I searched for by name?

This page names and scores no broker, so leaving a firm out is not a verdict on it. Search its name on the FCA register; a firm you cannot find there, in its own name or as the appointed representative of one that is, should not be arranging UK cover for you.

Is there a health insurance broker near me that is open now?

UK private medical insurance is mostly arranged by phone, video call and email, so a firm's hours matter more than its address: ask when its advisers can be reached, including when a claim needs chasing.

Are "health insurance experts" regulated?

Generally, "expert", like "brokerage" or "specialist", is a word a firm chooses for itself, not a status the FCA grants. Authorisation and permissions are what the register lets you check.

Do these checks apply to animal health insurance brokers?

The register check does, since as we understand it pet insurance is regulated insurance too. The rest of this page is about private medical insurance for people, the only cover this site deals with.

Once a firm is on your shortlist, watch it work on your own case; that is the test reviews cannot run. The broker we introduce can take that test from the form on this page. Whoever rings back, ask for a reference number before anyone mentions a price.