Westfield Health has recently released a new product, Hospital Treatment Insurance, aimed at the middle ground between cash plans and PMI. Considering the lengthening of hospital waiting lists, could this be the birth of a third tier to the health insurance market?
I believe that these kind of hybrid products are vital to customers who want value, choice and control of how they recover from illness, while being able to make the most of their valuable NHS care and have access to private hospital surgery when they need it.
WPA genuinely welcomes Westfield’s innovation. It is great for customers, the industry and WPA. Customers get greater choice, the industry gets more competitive, and we review and refine what we do so that we continue to offer superlative products and service.
Andy Couchman, Protection Review
Westfield’s Hospital Treatment Plan may be new, but the concept (originally known as ‘major medex’) has been around for years. In essence, it is very simple: a cash lump sum is payable for a specified private hospital operation or another lower sum, if it is a free NHS treatment. On Westfield’s Surgery Choices 2, the list of eligible procedures runs to more than 1,300 – or more than 25 pages worth.
As with all plans that do not provide full PMI coverage, however, there are gaps, otherwise there could be no price saving. The issue is what they are and whether the plan remains appealing. In Westfield’s case, gaps mean no cancer or heart treatment, no emergency treatment, no non-surgical benefits and, while the list of operations covered is long, it is incomplete. So, what is missing and how important are the omissions?
Few end customers will know what is missing, unless that is the procedure they need. Then it will be little consolation that may be a very rare occurrence.
That said, if the question is: ‘Is this plan, when combined with a good HCP, better than no PMI at all?’ the answer must be ‘Yes’. The only issue is whether the company funding the scheme can be persuaded to buy more cover, but that inevitably adds to the cost too.
If there is a third tier, though, perhaps it is the concept of paying a (relatively) big cash sum for NHS treatment, which is almost where cashplans came in.
Mike Izzard, Premier Choice Group
This move has been signalled for some time, since Westfield acquired the old Patients Choice brand. The new plan provides access to more than 1,250 surgical and medical procedures, while envisaging that premiums in ensuing years will not be as volatile as those in traditional PMI plans. Indeed, it appears that Westfield has entered a niche market that sits firmly between its traditional market of cash plans and the more comprehensive, albeit expensive traditional PMI plans.
This is perfect timing because more and more clients are trying to access affordable PMI owing to the increasing pressures within the NHS, but they are finding it difficult and sometimes unaffordable with the traditional PMI products. Cover starts from £1.24 per employee per week and employees can receive eligible treatment at any hospital or facility where private treatment is normally available. This is restricted to the UK only.
As with normal cost-effective schemes, heart and cancer are excluded because any such treatment in these areas is exorbitantly expensive, and this is an area traditionally left to normal comprehensive PMI.
The attraction for an employer with this type of scheme is to get their employees back to work as quickly as possible without incurring the huge costs sometimes related to traditional PMI, while also being cost-effective as a P11D benefit for the employee. In short, this is an innovative product timed right for the market from a respected brand.
