There are three main types of health insurance schemes currently available, Comprehensive, Essential Benefit and Low Cost. Below gives a broad overview of each of these.

Comprehensive

The best known and most traditional source of private medical insurance (PMI) and designed to provide immediate access to private care. This cover meets the full costs of specialist consultations and tests, both before and after hospital admissions, and the entire cost of treatment of eligible surgical and medical conditions in a wide range of hospitals.

Comprehensive cover also provides benefits for various therapies including physiotherapy and complementary practitioners where recommended by a GP or Specialist, and usually includes some limited cover (typically 28 days) for psychiatric problems.

Essential Benefit

As the name suggests, these are comprehensive plans with all the peripheral extras removed and cover a slightly narrower range of medical conditions. Typically they wouldn’t cover psychiatric conditions, pregnancy complications or treatment outside the UK. The hospital choice is often more restrictive but generally adequate for most people’s needs.

Essential Benefit plans also provide some benefit for out-patient therapies, including physiotherapy and complementary practices where requested by a GP or Specialist.

Low Cost

The least expensive of the conventional forms of private medical insurance or plans designed to cover major medical expenses. Usually benefits are concentrated on treatment in hospital (in-patient / day-patient care) with very limited, if any, cover for out-patient treatment.

Hospital choice is also likely to be more restricted, possible to one chain e.g. BMI or Nuffield, and a supplement may be payable to include additional hospitals in Central London.

The most restrictive plans only provide benefits for a defined list of surgical procedures, usually those with the longest waiting times.