What is private health insurance?
Private health insurance is designed to cover the cost of private healthcare for conditions that start after you join us. It provides the reassurance of knowing you can get fast access to diagnosis and eligible treatment, when you need it.
How does private health insurance work?
With private health insurance you pay regular premiums for your cover.
This provides the peace of mind of knowing, should you develop a health concern you can get fast access to private diagnosis or eligible treatment, without the worry of how to pay for it.
Our health cover is flexible and can be tailored to best suit everyone's needs.
Our Private Health Insurance Cover
Personal Health, our private health insurance plan provides cover for the things that matter to you. As standard, and subject to your medical history, we cover a wide range of treatment, including cancer, CT or MRI scans, if you need to spend time in hospital on specialist referral. You can then choose to add levels of cover to suit your needs. If you'd like to be covered for diagnostics and specialist consultations you'll need to take out an outpatient option.
With our heart and cancer cover and care, you’ll have access to a dedicated nurse helpline to help with healthcare concerns about the condition, treatment and care options. You can talk to us any time, day or night, so you’ll never have to find your way on your own.
The benefits of private health insurance
When life throws you an unexpected challenge, fast access to diagnosis and treatment are what matter most, along with genuine help, support and understanding from people who care. So here’s a summary of everything that comes with Personal Health, your private medical insurance plan, for new medical conditions after you join.
Convenience
Fast access to specialists to establish what might be wrong with our Fast Track Appointments service (when you choose an outpatient option)
Choice
Your choice of hospital (from our Directory of Hospitals), specialist and appointment time
Access
Access to specialist cancer treatment and the latest approved cancer drugs on specialist referral. (Used within terms of their licence. Subject to medical history and cover options chosen). Outpatient drugs are not covered by this plan.
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Benefits for you and your family
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Benefits for your stays in hospital
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Benefits of Comprehensive Cancer Cover
Tailor your Private Health Insurance
We understand that everyone’s different. So we have a range of cover options letting you tailor your private health insurance so it’s right for you. When you get an online quote you can add and remove these options and see how it impacts the price.
Here are the main options you can add to your private medical insurance.
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Standard Outpatient option
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Full Outpatient option
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Dentist and Optician Cashback
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Therapies option
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Mental Health option
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Extended Cover
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Travel option
What’s not covered
Here are the main things that aren’t covered as standard in our private health insurance:
- Treatment of medical conditions that you had – or had symptoms of – before you joined, unless you’ve switched from another plan and have underwriting called ‘continuing medical exclusions’
- Routine pregnancy and childbirth - we do offer free cover on your plan for newborns until your renewal date (restrictions may apply)
- Treatment of ongoing, recurring and long-term conditions, such as diabetes or asthma (we call these ‘chronic conditions’)
- Cosmetic treatment (except for birthmarks and prominent ears for members aged 14 and under, which are covered under our enhanced family cover)
- There are some specialists whose costs we can’t cover in full, so please call us if you need to claim
FAQs
We offer different types of health insurance to suit your needs:
Insurance is designed to cover new and unforeseen risks. Therefore, most private medical insurance doesn’t cover treatment for conditions you’re already suffering from until after a specified trouble free period. These are known as pre-existing conditions.
Pre-existing conditions are not normally covered under health insurance. Your cover for pre-existing conditions will depend on your underwriting terms when you join us. You can discuss this with one of our advisors before you purchase a plan.
Agreeing an excess when you take out your plan is a good way to make your premiums cheaper. When you call us to make a claim we’ll tell you whether there’s an excess on your plan.
When we receive an invoice for your treatment we’ll reduce the amount we’ll pay by your excess. You’ll only have to pay your excess once in each membership year and not if you have more treatment throughout the year. The excess is per member, per membership year.
We’ll let you know how to pay your excess when we send you a statement following a consultation or treatment.
Your treatment must be with one of our approved medical practitioners and take place at a hospital in our Directory of Hospitals. We recommend you talk to us before receiving any treatment so we can confirm you have the appropriate cover in place.
Drugs must have been established as being effective. This means the drug must be licensed for use by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The drug must be used within the terms of its licence.
Procedures and practices must have undergone appropriate clinical trial and assessment, and be sufficiently evidenced in published medical journals. For a surgical procedure to be covered it must be listed in our Schedule of Procedures and Fees. We will also pay for treatment not listed in our Schedule of Procedures and Fees if, before the treatment begins, it is established that the treatment is recognised as appropriate by an authoritative medical body.
Unproven treatment must:
• be authorised by us before it takes place; and
• take place in the UK; and
• be agreed by us as a suitable equivalent to conventional treatment and;
• have high quality evidence of its safety.
We will not pay for treatment that has not been established as being effective or which are experimental. You are not covered for complications that arise as a result of unauthorised, unproven or experimental treatment. Outpatient drugs are not covered. There is no benefit for complications of unproven treatment even if we approved and paid for them.
Defaqto - 5 Star Rating
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We’re proud that our Personal Health plan has been rated 5 Stars by independent financial information business, Defaqto. The Defaqto 5 Star Rating is based on an assessment of the overall product including all options. If some of the options are not selected, this will affect the product’s Star Rating. |
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We cover more than just the basics
See a doctor whenever you want, where you are. An online GP Service which fits with you.
Talk to a Working Body physiotherapist over the phone without a GP referral (over 18's only)
Manage your private health insurance online
Member Online makes managing your membership easy. Just register using your AXA Health membership number and you’ll be able to see how much of your private medical insurance cover you’ve used, check the conditions, treatments and payments you’ve claimed for.
Why choose us?
We've always aimed to make a real difference for our members. We were founded by doctors and hospitals working together to give more people better access to healthcare, and in the 80 years since, we've grown to become part of the biggest insurance groups in the world, with all the reassurance that bring.
We're the health partner you can rely on: at your side to motivate you, and in your corner to support you when you need it.
*Lines are open 09:00 - 19:00 Mon - Fri. Closed Sat - Sun. We may record and/or monitor calls for quality assurance, training and as a record of our conversation.