What Is Health Insurance?

What Types Of Policy Can You Get?

There are different types of health insurance you can get, which cover inpatient, outpatient or day patient care. Inpatient policies cover staying in hospital for tests or surgeries, while outpatient policies cover consultations, diagnoses and your treatment for conditions where you don’t need to stay overnight.

For day patient policies, you’ll be covered for regular appointments where you don’t need to stay overnight. Health insurance is designed to cover short-term illnesses and injuries, so it doesn’t cover all health problems. Non-essential cosmetic treatments, normal pregnancy care and drug abuse treatments are rarely covered, for example.

There are policies designed for all sorts of lifestyles or needs. For example, you can get health insurance as an individual, for your entire family or for your business employees.

There are comprehensive policies to cover a wide range of treatments as well as specified policies to cater to those dealing with optical costs, medical care during pregnancy or dental costs. Similarly, you can get policies for specific age

ranges such as over 50, over 65 or over 70 policies.

Some insurers allow you to customise your plan to include other treatments and options such as psychiatric treatment, dental care, physiotherapy or even treatments for specific diseases such as cancer.

There are limits on how much you can claim, as with any insurance policy, and these often include annual limits on the total amount claimed, how much is claimed for each condition and how much is claimed for inpatient or outpatient care. Others may only pay for treatments where the waiting time with the NHS is longer than six months.