Comparing private health insurance policies means getting two or more quotes to the point where the gap between them is down to each insurer's pricing and wording, not to a setting one of them quietly changed. Most of the traps sit in quotes that look alike. An FCA-authorised broker can have several insurers price a single specification for you and show where their wording diverges; the form on this page reaches that broker, and asking is free.

If you came to set private cover against public cover, the NHS or a scheme at work, that comparison has its own heading further down.

Before the price: three things two quotes have to share

Every quote prices one contract, one set of people and one period. If any of the three differs, the two numbers answer different questions.

The same kind of contract. Private medical insurance covers private treatment for eligible conditions arising once cover has started. A health cash plan refunds set amounts on everyday bills, international cover is built around the country you live in with no NHS underneath, and travel insurance is bought for a trip. All turn up in searches for health insurance; only the first belongs in this comparison, and the commonest mix-up is untangled by health cash plans versus private health insurance.

The same people, underwritten the same way. Check that every quote names the same members on the same underwriting route. A quote on a full medical declaration and one on a moratorium are, broadly, pricing different sets of exclusions: the first settled from your answers before you buy, the second excluding recent conditions automatically and looking at your history when you claim. Until both use one route, the cheaper may simply be the one that covers less of your past; whether insurers cover pre-existing conditions quotes what insurers write.

The same terms of payment. Convert a yearly figure to monthly, or the reverse, before reading two quotes together. Check the start date too: age is one of the main things a premium is set on, so a start date after a birthday can price you a year older.

Line the specification up against one quote, not against product names

Product names do not travel between insurers, so a comparison that starts from them starts in the wrong place. The settings that make up a specification, from the out-patient level and hospital list to the excess, any NHS-wait condition and the options taken, each get their own explanation in types of private health insurance policy. This page is about how to use them.

Take the quote you would choose if price were no object and treat its schedule as the reference. Copy every line from it, with the figure wherever there is one, and ask each other insurer to match it line for line. Where an insurer can match, its price is now comparable with the reference. Where it cannot, because its nearest hospital list leaves out the hospital you want, say, or it offers nothing at the reference's out-patient level, the mismatch is a finding: accept that insurer's nearest version knowingly, or drop it from the shortlist. Have each mismatch written on the quote, not mentioned on a call.

The reference need not be a real quote: a specification you draft yourself works, provided every line is filled in, since a blank line is where each insurer slips in its own default. Once the sheet is complete, the broker reached by this page's form can put identical lines to several insurers in one go, free of charge.

Where matched quotes can still part company

Quotes can agree on every setting and still pay out differently, because the wording decides what falls inside each limit.

  • Specialists' fees. Some policies pay a consultant up to the insurer's own fee schedule rather than whatever the consultant charges, which can leave you a difference to pay; one insurer's wording is quoted on private hospital prices and your health insurance.
  • What a limit takes in. One out-patient cap may cover consultations, tests and scans together, another only some of them; one excess may fall once a policy year, another on each claim. Equal figures can still mean unequal bills; the excess rules are taken apart on the excess explained.
  • When a condition becomes long-term. Policies are built around acute conditions and generally leave chronic ones out, but where one becomes the other, and what is still paid afterwards, each wording defines for itself. Anyone comparing cancer cover should find that line first.
  • The route to treatment. Whether a claim must start with a GP referral, and whether the insurer must agree treatment before anything is booked. A step optional on one policy can be a condition of payment on another.

Compare the second year as well as the first

A quote prices twelve months, but the policy you pick is likely to be the one you keep: a later move generally puts your history in front of a new insurer, and whatever was treated in between may then be excluded unless that insurer accepts your current terms as they stand. Three questions reach the years nobody has quoted.

  1. What happens at renewal? A personal premium is generally set again each year on your age at the time; your renewal price deals with a rise.
  2. What would one claim do? Where an insurer runs a no-claims discount, its scale and what a claim takes off it are the insurer's to set; the two wordings set side by side on the policy types page are written very differently.
  3. Could the cover be widened later without fresh questions? Adding back an out-patient layer you cut to save money may mean answering health questions again. Insurers differ in how their terms treat this, so ask each name on your shortlist; the broker who calls you back once the form is in can put it to all of them, free.

A quote that wins in the first year on a lean build can lose by the third. Changing or switching private health insurance picks up moving once you hold a policy.

Private health insurance versus public, and the other comparisons people search

  • Public cover, the NHS or the government. What you buy here is private, a contract with an insurer paid for by you or an employer, and the UK has no public health insurance policy to set it against: the NHS is funded through tax, charges nothing when you are treated, and a private policy sits on top of it. Waits and cash prices are compared in private health insurance versus the NHS, and what the NHS covers free lists what you already have.
  • Cover through work. Rarely like for like: the employer chose the specification, and a scheme may be written on an underwriting basis an individual is not usually offered. Employer-paid cover is also normally a benefit in kind, as we understand the general position rather than as tax advice; private health insurance and tax sets it out. Scheme members have private health insurance through work, and anyone thinking of holding both should read how claiming works with two policies.
  • Health insurance versus private medical insurance. Two names, one product; what private health insurance is explains the contract.
  • Travel insurance. Bought for a trip and generally aimed at emergencies while you are away, where a UK medical policy is built for planned treatment at home; cover while travelling takes up the overlap.
  • Other countries' systems. Public and private cover in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia, the ACA and "commercial" plans in the United States, and Expatrio, a name from the German market, are foreign arrangements this site does not describe; the Victoria 3 searches appear to concern a law in a strategy video game.

Questions that make a broker's quotes comparable

Ask for each answer in writing, beside its figure.

  1. Are all the quotes for the same members on the same underwriting route, and if not, which one differs?
  2. Against my reference specification, which lines could each insurer not match, and what did it put in their place?
  3. Do the specialists I would expect to see charge within each insurer's fee schedule?
  4. Is each out-patient limit, and each excess, counted on the same basis?
  5. If I claimed once in the first year, what would each policy's own terms do to the second year's premium?
  6. Which insurers on your panel did you leave out of this comparison, and why?

Public, private and like-for-like: short answers

Is private health insurance better than public?

No measure of better applies to everyone. A policy changes how a planned operation is paid for and arranged, and leaves emergency care and your GP where they were. Whether that is worth a premium turns on local waits and the cost of paying privately, both on the NHS comparison page linked above; is private health insurance worth it takes the wider question.

Can you use the NHS if you have private health insurance?

Yes. Holding a policy does not alter your NHS entitlement, and you can be treated on the NHS even for something the policy would pay for. Some policies pay you a cash sum when you do, and three insurers' versions are quoted on the NHS comparison page.

Is there private health insurance for public sector workers?

The policies are the ones anybody can buy; what varies is whether the employer arranges a scheme. Teachers have a page on what cover costs them, and NHS staff have private health insurance for NHS staff.

Is private healthcare the same as private health insurance?

No. Private healthcare is the treatment, and insurance is one way of paying for it; the other is self-funding, paying a hospital's cash price when you need the operation, and private hospital prices has published figures.

What is medical indemnity insurance in the UK?

Usually cover for doctors and other clinicians against claims brought by patients, not something a patient buys for their own treatment. "Indemnity plan" is also an American term, which this site does not describe.

Settle the reference specification first, with the hospitals named, then put one request through this page's form: each insurer's figure beside the lines it could and could not match. There is no charge for asking.