Private health insurance

Most health insurance policies are flexible, allowing you to tailor your cover to match your needs and budget. Even cheap, basic policies cover the most serious of conditions and treatments, and you can then opt for extra options if you'd like to.

Bear in mind that health insurance premiums usually increase yearly, so making it affordable in the long term is important.

With most private healthcare policies, you can add many extras to enhance your plan. Out-patient consultations and tests are the most popular. But, you can also add things like mental health cover, dental cover and even travel cover. Adding options will increase your health insurance premiums, but, you'll get more valuable benefits.

There are several ways you can reduce your cover, or reduce your premiums. The simplest is adding an excess, which is the amount you'll pay towards claims. The higher your excess, the lower your premiums should be.

You can also choose a guided consultant option, which will reduce the number of specialists you can use for a cheaper premium.

Finally, you could opt to add an NHS wait option, where you agree that you'll use the NHS if you can be treated there within 4-6 weeks.

When you need medical treatment, the last thing you want is to be stuck on the phone in a queue or worrying about if claims will be paid. Some health insurance providers are more liberal than others when it comes to paying claims, so it's worth reading their reviews.

Performance in customer service is constantly changing, so a good insurance provider today might not be tomorrow. When looking at reviews, sort them to show the most recent so you can see the current performance.

To make it easier, we have created a list of the UK's best private health insurance providers. Our ranking is based on in-depth expert analysis of the provider policies, independent customer reviews and industry awards.

Each insurer will have a list of exclusions in their policy documents on their websites. These exclusions often vary, so it's worth reading your insurer's before getting a policy.

It's vital that you understand the scope of your health insurance before signing up so that you don't get any nasty surprises down the line. As much as it's a pain to do it, this information is available in the policy terms, and an hour or so spent reading them is time well spent.

Some health insurance providers will give you a discount if you add more people to your policy. Of course, having more people will increase the overall cost, but, in most cases, it will be cheaper than insuring each person individually. Adding children to your policy is another good example, as some insurance will only charge for your eldest child, which can be a win for people with multiple children.

If you've had a recent health condition, or perhaps you're suffering from one now and you try to claim for it after getting a health insurance policy, it's more than likely your insurer will find out and deny the claim.

When you make a claim, your insurer will ask you questions about when you first experienced symptoms, and they'll also ask the medical consultant you see for their view on the condition and when they think it first started. Your insurer can also ask to see your medical records if they suspect what you're claiming for is a pre-existing condition, so take our advice, it's not worth the bother of trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

Take a look at our dedicated guide to pre-existing medical condition to find out more.

Health insurance brokers work for you, yet you don't have to pay them for their service. They are independent of the insurers and usually have access to the same prices you'd pay going direct.

There are many health insurance brokers in the market, and seemingly more by the day as demand for private health insurance grows, but the quality of the advice you receive will vary, usually based on their experience.

Brokers that have been in the market for at least 3-5 years will understand the products deeply; they'll know the pitfalls and be able to tell you things that aren't obvious to anyone outside of the industry. It's not to say that brokers with less experience can't be good; of course, they can, but you'll usually find the depth of knowledge and the quality of advice improves with years of service.

At myTribe, we partner with several market-leading brokers, introducing our readers to them for high-quality financial advice. We vet them all and ensure they adhere to our high standards by surveying people we introduce to ensure that the high levels of service we expect are maintained.

If you want high-quality financial advice from experienced brokers that we actively recommend, please click here to request a comparison quote.