Private Healthcare Insurance from Standard Life

Standard Life Healthcare operates in the UK, has been offering health insurance for years and is part of Standard Life group (Standard Life plc and its subsidiaries). Here’s a review of the type of health cover you can expect.

Health insurance from Standard Life Healthcare differs from other insurers in that you build your policy according to your needs rather than choosing from a range of already developed plans and policies. This can be good if you know exactly what you require but may be difficult to compare your costs and cover against other health insurance companies.

Core healthcare policy

When building your policy you always start with their core health care product which contains most of the basic items you would expect from medical insurance. These will include access to private hospitals and getting an appointment when you want it. The core healthcare has the following as standard:

• In patient and day patient treatment including – all hospital charges, all consultant fees and charges, diagnostics tests such as MRI scans and radiology, full cost for physiotherapy, NHS payments if you stay in an NHS hospital rather than a private one and day patient cash benefits  for NHS treatments.
• Out patient costs – includes full coverage for MRI, CT and PET scans

Cancer cover – this is included as standard and covers most things you need for investigations and test to diagnose the condition. It also includes the cost of treatment to remove the cancer and any reconstructive surgery that may be required. You also get cover for radiotherapy or chemotherapy, stem cell therapy and 12 months treatment using biological therapies such as herceptin or avastin. The policy covers primary and secondary cancers however this insurance won’t cover you for preventative treatment or the removal of healthy tissue to prevent breast cancer. If you are in any doubt you should speak to a trained advisor.

Enhancing the core health care product

If you wish to add any additional treatments or cover then this is the time to choose what you may require. Some of the options are simply to increase the value of some specialist consultations but the options don’t stop with the basics and some of these can not be found with other private medical insurance companies. You can choose to add the following to your policy:

• Home care including home nursing and help at home
• Pregnancy complications and investigations into infertility
• Psychiatric treatments including in patient and day care
• Telephone and/ or face to face assistance programme
• Health screening
• Access to a private general practitioner (GP)
• Full maternity cover including post natal care up to £3,000
• Overseas travel insurance
• Full dental insurance

Once you have chosen from the basic list of options then it’s time to choose your hospital list and excess. All insurers work the same in that generally the UK country wide private hospital lists are included then you can opt for some specialist inner London hospitals. The excess on these policies range from £50 to £5,000 which is one method to reduce your monthly or annual premiums.

The NHS wait options provides a 15% discount on your policy which means if the NHS can treat you within 6 weeks then you will have their treatment but if they can’t you get to go private. Then there are no claims discounts which not all insurers offer which range from a 10% discount after 1 year to 65% after 8 years.

Once you have chosen your cover and options then you’ll have a quote for your Standard Life health insurance and you can get cover almost immediately.