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Health Insurance -
Cancer-only cover |
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Cancer currently affects 1 in 3 people, but experts have said that the number is said to rise by a third to 300,000 patients each year by 2020.
At the moment, the UK cancer survival rate is one of the worst in Europe; we spend far less money on treating the disease than other countries and some advanced medicines that are available in Europe cannot be received from the NHS.
Insurers have recently started taking notice of this, and some now provide cancer-only cover. Although the disease is becoming more and more widespread, these products raise the question of whether people really need to take out this kind of cover for the future. So how do they work? To use an example, Virgin Cancer Cover will pay out 10% of the insurance amount when a diagnosis is made, 25% if the cancer is at a later stage and the full amount if the disease is seriously invasive. This means that this kind of insurance could enable patients to pay for life-saving drugs that are not currently available on the NHS.
Last year, Western Provident Association (WPA) launched a plan that uses the insurance money to pay for drugs not available in the UK on the NHS but have been approved by the European Medicines Agency. The scheme, called MyCancerDrugs, will pay out a maximum amount of £50,000 over a lifetime. The premiums for this scheme are the same amount as your age, so, for example, if you are 40, you will be paying a £40 premium plus 5% premium tax which totals £42. Smokers are required to pay double, but children under 21 can also be included in the policy for £22.50 each year. As with Virgin Cancer Cover, there is an age restriction of 65 on the policy. In addition to this, any one whose parents or siblings was diagnosed with cancer before the age of 60 will not be covered, and it will not pay out on any claim made within 90 days of the policy's start.
With some drugs costing 10,000 a month, however, critics of the scheme believe the ceiling price is too low, although the premiums are low. With the scheme, you can still receive care from the NHS, the money is used to pay for drugs and the private practitioners needed to administer them. There have been reports that certain health authorities may refuse to treat patients who are combining private and public health care, although Nigel Griffin QC, lawyer for WPA, says this is illegal. Julian Stainton of WPA says: 'People without medical insurance tell us they need help to get and pay for these very expensive anti-cancer drugs when they've been refused them by the NHS, which is why we devised this policy.'
Compared to life insurance and critical illness cover on their own, the premiums for cancer cover are quite expensive – approximately £20 to £25 each month. If you are older however, you will have to pay more and those over 70 years old are not eligible for cover. Usually, premiums are reviewed and renewed every 5 years. Life cover is included in the premium, so if you are diagnosed with any kind of terminal illness, the full sum of the insurance will be paid out before your death.
A popular alternative to cover which only covers cancer is private medical insurance or health insurance which covers serious illnesses like cancer as well as paying for operations such as hip replacements, heart attacks and hernias. There are several big name providers such as Bupa, AXA and PPP. As with any policy, it is important to read the small print, especially with regards to the length of time treatment is covered.
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