Bupa ? Is it worth it ? and what about life insurance

[SpikieMikie]

I've just started to look at health care and life insurance options. I'd consider myself reasonably intelligent and all the different options are baffling..

Essentially, I'd like private health care if I were to fall ill - and it seems like Bupa offer the only real option. Anyone had good / bad experiences with Bupa ? The Bupa doesn't give any indicative prices.. what roughly do you think would be the premium for individual cover for a 28yr old male non-smoker ?

Also, if I became ill, I'd like to know I had some financial security. At present, through my employer, if I fell ill, I'd get my full pay for 6 months and then half pay for a further 6 months. I don't have any dependents or a mortage. Therefore, I'd need cover in the period after 12 months of illness for about �30k a year and a lump sum of �50k in the event of death or terminal illness..

Any advice / help would be greatly received...

Thanks..

[terambulan]

NO....private have to use NHS facilities, xray/ctc etc, NHS nurses work overtime in private. Same docs/consultants. I would recommend PAYgo.

You have to be A1 fit for a reasonable Bupa/Axa fee.

From my experience of OH, care was superior in NHS ward than private room under private.

[shaneystar2]

I have had private health care for years . It was a perk of my husbands job but now we are retired we still pay for it for peace of mind ..
I have used it and had excellent care .Private hospitals don't all use NHS facilties.I was in an independent one .My husband would have been walking around with a catheter for weeks if we hadn't had private health care when he had a prostate op a few years ago .
My brother recently had a knee replacement on the NHS and it turned into a horror story ! Yet other people only have good experiences .It's all pot luck .
If you can afford it go for it .
We are over sixty and pay eighty quid a month for the two of us .As a young fit chap you would pay much less .
Phone Bupa and ask them .

[Scarlett]

If you don't have a mortgage I wouldn't bother. If you get too ill to work you can claim incapacity and housing benefit. If you have a mortgage you cannot claim housing benefit and so risk losing your house unless you have private medical insurance. You need more security/peace of mind if you have a house than if you don't.

[sqad617]

terambulan may have been correct 30yrs ago, but now private hospitals do NOT use NHS facilities, xrays etc, they have their own. Docs/consultants take a drop in NHS salary for the privelidge of doing Private Practice. Give a good service in the NHS and you generally get the GP's private practise so everyone bebefits. For Private Practice the pluses are plenty of time for each patient and pleasant working conditions. Of course the money id also important. Good and bad in both NHS and Private..same the world over. Private Health Care is expensive, but if you can afford it then go for it. Similar situation to private education.

[SimonBolivar]

Expensive but well worth it. Ring BUPA for more details on a plan suitable for you.

Been with BUPA for over 20 years.

[sqad617]

Just had another thought.....BUPA is not the only company that provide private health care, many offer good premiums.e.g Norwich Union, Exeter Health Care etc. etc.
A financial adviser would certainly find a company which would suit your needs.

[terambulan]

sqad617....my exp is 2005-8. In a royal borough hospital named after royalty with consultants from local NHS. Also using NHS facilities. You do get smart ensuite but relatives left to clean-up! You are served petit-fours to eat with hands covered in excrement.....that's my experience for OH, who spent lifetime on private care.

I'll take my chances with NHS!

[Prudentia]

Can't comment on the value or otherwise of being in BUPA, I was in myself for many years, but I did in the late eighties have a very close friend who paid out a few hundred pounds for a full days health checkover and was quite rightly pronounced fit on discharge at 4.30 pm. Unfortunately he dropped dead in the foyer on his way out, no fault to BUPA, thats just the way life goes, he could have been in tesco!

[Postdog]

Seriously thought about private health care some months back, when I was injured (bad knee), couldn't work, and faced months on a NHS waiting list if the diagnosis proved right (it didn't)

I didn't want to face that again so I looked at the choices, got a few quotes etc, but in the end decided the cost outweighed the benefits.

[gina32]

i has private treatment several times and the service was brilliant, the rooms were immaculate and i chose the food from a menu, visitors were always followed in by staff asking if they wanted anything to drink, i couldnt fault it, and it was its own hospital, didnt use teh nhs facilities at all

[SpikieMikie]

Thanks for all that ... I think I'll get a quote and decide from there.. �40 or �50 seems reasonable, but I have heard people mention �120 a month type figures.. although I'm not sure if thats for a whole family or not.

While I appreciate that some staff may transfer between the NHS and BUPA, I think shorter waiting times and private, rather than communal, rooms and facilities really are worth paying extra for... as for terambulan's inference that private care is all fur coat and no knickers, at least you can complain and you are, in effect, a customer. In an NHS environment I gather its very much like it or lump it.

[Ethel]

~When I paid to go private last year, I saw a consultant in an NHS hospital.

When the NHS appointment came through I saw the same consultant at the same hospital.

The only difference was I saw him privately one week sooner

[sqad617]

Ethel, do not know the circumstances of the Private Healthcare in your area, but you seemed tohave had a bad deal. When you NHS appt came through, why didn't you cancel your private appt. I agree that wherever possible, Private Health Care should be outside the NHS buildings. In 1946 Aneurin Bevan wanted to keep the doctors in the NHS hospitals so they were on hand, so to speak, so there were provisions given for Consultants to indulge in private practice. He though that with a free NHS, who would want to pay to be seen. It would be interesting to record his comments if he could see the explosion in Private Practice over the past 48 yrs. Why should ths be so?