Health insurance, sometimes called private medical insurance, covers the costs of independent healthcare, giving fast access to diagnosis and high-quality treatment.
Customers can access treatment with specialists directly by calling Bupa for issues with muscles, bones and joints, mental health, or symptoms of cancer. They can also use our Digital GP app, giving them fast access to medical support with a GP, physiotherapist or mental health specialist, as well as speedier referrals to any treatment they might need. They can also access treatment through NHS GPs.
How we calculate renewal premiums
We work hard to keep premium increases as low as possible, negotiating the best prices with healthcare professionals and hospitals to manage costs on our customers’ behalf, as well as keeping our own costs low. We talk to many of our customers each year to help them find the most appropriate policy for their needs and budget.
We provide health insurance cover for individuals, small and medium-sized businesses, and larger companies. For each of these customer groups, we use some common factors to help set the right premium at the renewal of a policy, namely:
- the rise in prices from the hospitals and clinics and clinicians we work with, which we negotiate hard to keep under control
- the costs of new treatments, such as new cancer drugs, or other new breakthrough treatments
- the age of the person or people included on the policy, be they members of a family or employees in a business, as this heavily influences likely claims
- the location of everyone on the policy, as the cost of healthcare varies around the country
- Insurance Premium Tax which now stands at 12%
Some additional factors are also used that are specific to different customer groups:
Individual policies
Most policies have either a No Claims Discount or a Low Claims Bonus, which gives customers a discount if they haven’t claimed in the previous year or adds some extra onto their premium increase if they have.
Small business policies
For all policies we make an assessment of the business’ future claims risk, i.e. the likely size of claims from everyone in the business policy the next year. If we predict that a business’ claims will go up significantly in the next year, we will raise their premiums more than a business where claims are predicted to stay the same or decrease. This is common market practice.
