BUPA premiums for pensioners
Discussion
My inlaws are 72. Their BUPA health insurance has naturally increased every year. This year the renewal is £9,400 total. It seems an awful lot. Is that the norm. They haven't claimed for some time. I'm considering a suggestion of self insurance . TIA
Edited by Burwood on Saturday 12th June 10:57
Burwood said:
My inlaws are 72. There BUPA health insurance has naturally increased every year. This year the renewal is £9,400 total. It seems an awful lot. Is that the norm. They haven't claimed for some time. I'm considering a suggestion of self insurance . TIA
I am not that age yet, but, as others have said, the premiums rocket upwards the older you get.I am currently a BUPA winner (!) as I needed 3 heart ops which were buttock-clenchingly expensive... including a lengthy stay at the Cromwell hospital. I am not prone to amateur dramatics, but I wouldn't be here now had I been on the NHS, the bypass surgery was arranged (and done) in 5 days. I've had more benefit in cost terms than the premiums I've paid.
So I'll keep BUPA going for the medium term, but there'll come a day when it will seem too much.
My Wife works for BUPA and although not knowing all the details and she works on the corporate side, she says this sounds about right.
£9K of self insuring will get nowhere fast especially when a consultation is £250 each time, a blood test is upwards of £1K. and that is before the operations and hospital stays etc which can run into the tens of thousands each time.
That said £9400 is a lot of money just to jump the queue.
£9K of self insuring will get nowhere fast especially when a consultation is £250 each time, a blood test is upwards of £1K. and that is before the operations and hospital stays etc which can run into the tens of thousands each time.
That said £9400 is a lot of money just to jump the queue.
Burwood said:
My inlaws are 72. There BUPA health insurance has naturally increased every year. This year the renewal is £9,400 total. It seems an awful lot. Is that the norm. They haven't claimed for some time. I'm considering a suggestion of self insurance. TIA
Depending on how long they haven't claimed for they could try shopping around the other major insurers - you can get an idea of the likely cost just by doing an online quote. Of course there is the moratorium issue to consider which isn't something that's applicable to other types of insurance.Like car insurance you may well find that a new quote from BUPA will be less that they are paying now - I found a big difference between renewal & new customer prices with Vitality. In general though you can't just cancel with BUPA & sign up as a new customer - you'll probably have to wait six months..
Mr Pointy said:
Depending on how long they haven't claimed for they could try shopping around the other major insurers - you can get an idea of the likely cost just by doing an online quote. Of course there is the moratorium issue to consider which isn't something that's applicable to other types of insurance.
I shopped around to price check my renewal and through SAGA, who currently use Axa PPP, pretty well the same cover would have been £4K (I think even less than that as there was on offer on at the time). That was based on just a few key questions (cancer, heart trouble etc) not occuring within last 5 yrs and of course didn't cover anything already known.Snag for us is we have niggling little things in the last few years that in theory could turn into something major and it all started to get a bit complicated, hence for this year, probably my last year at work, we just decided to continue.
Sheepshanks said:
Mr Pointy said:
Depending on how long they haven't claimed for they could try shopping around the other major insurers - you can get an idea of the likely cost just by doing an online quote. Of course there is the moratorium issue to consider which isn't something that's applicable to other types of insurance.
I shopped around to price check my renewal and through SAGA, who currently use Axa PPP, pretty well the same cover would have been £4K (I think even less than that as there was on offer on at the time). That was based on just a few key questions (cancer, heart trouble etc) not occuring within last 5 yrs and of course didn't cover anything already known.Snag for us is we have niggling little things in the last few years that in theory could turn into something major and it all started to get a bit complicated, hence for this year, probably my last year at work, we just decided to continue.
NDA said:
I am currently a BUPA winner (!) as I needed 3 heart ops which were buttock-clenchingly expensive... including a lengthy stay at the Cromwell hospital. I am not prone to amateur dramatics, but I wouldn't be here now had I been on the NHS, the bypass surgery was arranged (and done) in 5 days.
I'm not sure that's necessarily the case.The Mirror and similar rags are very quick to highlight poor Auntie Beryl having her hip surgery delayed yet again because the nasty Tories have stolen all the NHS budget to give to their mates, but how often do you hear the other side of the story?
A few years ago, my wife had lost the sight in her left eye due to diabetic retinopathy (short version = lots of bleeding inside the eyeball = can't see through the blood), and was scheduled in for an NHS appointment to fix it the following March. That Christmas, she woke up, went to go to the loo, and got to the edge of the bed at which point she went absolutely rigid, and just said "I can't see anything". She'd had a massive bleed in her right eye during the night, and as a result could literally only detect light or dark.
I got her to the consultant at the earliest possible opportunity after Christmas (and from experience with my private healthcare, that wouldn't have happened any faster going private - they're great at quicker response to routine stuff, but not geared up to do acute stuff any faster) - and he looked at her eyes, noted that my wife was scheduled for surgery in March, then asked us to wait a moment whilst he went to check with his secretary if there was anything they could do to bring her surgery forward a bit.
Needless to say, you can imagine how my wife was feeling whilst he was away, at the thought of spending maybe 3 months effectively totally blind, especially with a young baby to cope with as well. The consultant came back a few minutes later to say that as there weren't any routine slots available between then and March, he'd cancelled another patient's surgery, so she wasn't to eat anything after midnight, as he'd be operating on her the following day!
Of course, Aunt Beryl will be moaning to the rooftops about her surgery being cancelled, but she still had acceptable sight in one eye, whereas my wife didn't, and by and large, that's what you're paying for when you go private - the knowledge that you'll get operated on quickly without anyone queue-jumping, so your pain/discomfort/inconvenience is limited. If, on the other hand, you really need the surgery to survive, or in my wife's case to actually be able to function day to day, then going private probably won't make that much difference.
Mr Pointy said:
Yes, that's the problem - five years is a long moratorium & of course everyone has small stuff that might turn out to be major. It's a real trap as you get older.
That was only for major stuff, cancer, heart etc. Everything else was only last two years. Trouble is the stuff I've had, and this is where private health has been disappointing, has never been resolved. Both (stomach and neck/shoulder) where deemed, by the relevant consultant, not bad enough to operate - keep an eye on them. So to get those covered I was back (or even above) the cost of the company policy.NDA said:
I am currently a BUPA winner (!) as I needed 3 heart ops which were buttock-clenchingly expensive... including a lengthy stay at the Cromwell hospital. I am not prone to amateur dramatics, but I wouldn't be here now had I been on the NHS, the bypass surgery was arranged (and done) in 5 days. I've had more benefit in cost terms than the premiums I've paid.
An elderly neighbour of mine was fund unresponsive and going blue a few weeks ago. It's reckoned his heart stopped for 10-15 mins. First-aid etc got him back - paramedics where astonished. NHS threw the works at him - including a heart op at Broadgreen, Liverpool (don't know the details). He's back home now.I note your location is London, which may have helped - I wonder if there's much private capability for major heart surgery, with intensive care etc, in the rest on the country?
Edited by Sheepshanks on Saturday 12th June 15:23
Radec said:
Yeah that amount is pretty normal for the age group.
It works like the opposite of car insurance, the older you get the more expensive it becomes.
Yup. My son is 23 and gets private medical as a perk thru work. He's a 20% taxpayer and the BIK hit to him is about a tenner a month. That suggests an annual premium of £600. With Axa PPP. It works like the opposite of car insurance, the older you get the more expensive it becomes.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Yup. My son is 23 and gets private medical as a perk thru work. He's a 20% taxpayer and the BIK hit to him is about a tenner a month. That suggests an annual premium of £600. With Axa PPP.
If it's a large company the premiums can be relatively buttons at any age. That said, when I worked for a big company the cover was quite limited - had several refusals to pay, even on stuff they'd pre-authorised. IIRC a lot of it was to do with very low out-patient treatment limits, which you blow through in the blink of an eye in a private setting.I was surprised, in looking at my cover, that relatively few people have private health care - think the numbers are 3 million on company schemes and 1 million who pay themselves. Allegedly, a bit like it's said with car insurance, the providers are barely covering their costs. There's really only five companies in the game.
Sheepshanks said:
Allegedly, a bit like it's said with car insurance, the providers are barely covering their costs. There's really only five companies in the game.
I read an interesting article a few years ago that said most insurers actually have to pay out more in claims than they take in in premiums to be competitive.Where they make their money is by investing the income received from premiums and counting on the investment returns outstripping the amount by which the claims exceed the premiums.
Kermit power said:
Sheepshanks said:
Allegedly, a bit like it's said with car insurance, the providers are barely covering their costs. There's really only five companies in the game.
I read an interesting article a few years ago that said most insurers actually have to pay out more in claims than they take in in premiums to be competitive.Where they make their money is by investing the income received from premiums and counting on the investment returns outstripping the amount by which the claims exceed the premiums.
Sheepshanks said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Yup. My son is 23 and gets private medical as a perk thru work. He's a 20% taxpayer and the BIK hit to him is about a tenner a month. That suggests an annual premium of £600. With Axa PPP.
If it's a large company the premiums can be relatively buttons at any age. That said, when I worked for a big company the cover was quite limited - had several refusals to pay, even on stuff they'd pre-authorised. IIRC a lot of it was to do with very low out-patient treatment limits, which you blow through in the blink of an eye in a private setting.Gassing Station | Health Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff