What is a Private Medical Insurance quote?
A Private Medical Insurance quote is the monthly (or annual) premium an insurer would charge you for a specific plan, on a specific hospital list, with a specific excess, underwritten a specific way. Change any of those four and you get a different number.
Two quotes for "PMI at £80 a month" from two different insurers can cover completely different things. One might exclude outpatient consultations. The other might cap mental health at £1,000 a year. The premium is not the product. The product is what is in the plan document behind the premium.
How do you get a PMI quote in the UK?
There are three routes to a UK PMI quote, and they behave differently.
Direct from the insurer. You go to Aviva, AXA, Bupa, Vitality or WPA, use their online calculator or speak to their call centre, and get a quote for their product. It is fast, and the number is accurate for that insurer. It tells you nothing about whether that insurer is the right one for you.
Aggregator or comparison site. You fill in a form once, and get quotes back from a panel of insurers. According to Which?, not every UK insurer sits on every comparison panel, so you are only seeing a slice of the market. Aggregators are strong on individual and family PMI, weaker on group PMI, and the quotes are usually indicative rather than firm.
Broker. You have one conversation with an FCA-regulated adviser, they run the market on your behalf, and come back with firm quotes from every insurer they hold an agency with. Which? notes that a broker route "usually takes longer but should provide a much more bespoke quotation with exclusions clearly explained." That is the trade-off: half an hour more of your time, in return for quotes that are actually comparable.
At The Broking Group we hold direct agencies with all five major UK health insurers (Aviva, AXA, Bupa, Vitality and WPA), plus Freedom. Every enquiry goes through the same 20-minute call, and the response is a firm quote from every insurer on the panel, on identical cover, so you are comparing like with like.
Should you get a quote from an aggregator, direct from the insurer, or through a broker?
Use the aggregator to sanity-check the ballpark. Use the insurer if you already know exactly which insurer and plan you want, and you just want to buy it. Use a broker for everything else, particularly if you have any pre-existing condition, if the policy is for more than one person, or if you are pricing SME group cover.
The reason is simple: PMI is not a commodity, and the wrong plan costs the same as the right one. A broker earns their keep the first time an outpatient claim is paid on a plan you did not know covered it, or a hospital list you needed turns out to include your consultant, or an excess is set at a level that reduces your monthly premium by more than you would ever claim.
What information does a broker need to give you a quote?
For an individual or family PMI quote, a UK broker needs:
- Full name and date of birth for every person being insured.
- Your home postcode.
- Whether you want to include a partner and any children.
- Your budget or the level of cover you have in mind (basic, mid-range or comprehensive).
- An indication of any pre-existing medical conditions in the last five years.
- Your preferred underwriting method (moratorium or full medical underwriting) if you have one.
For a group PMI quote for an SME, the broker also needs the number of employees you want to cover, their age profile, whether you are including partners and children, and whether the scheme is new or replacing an existing one.
That is enough for a firm quote. Anything more detailed can wait until you have chosen an insurer.
How many quotes should you compare?
For personal or family PMI, three to five. Any fewer and you are guessing. Any more and you are chasing noise, because the mid-market insurers cluster.
There are five major UK health insurers (Aviva, AXA, Bupa, Vitality and WPA), plus a handful of specialists such as Freedom, The Exeter and CS Healthcare. A whole-of-market broker will run all five majors as standard and add specialists where they fit. If you only see one or two quotes back, ask the broker why.
What should a proper PMI quote include?
A quote you can act on shows the following, on one page or one email, for every insurer on the shortlist:
- The monthly premium and the annual premium (they often differ slightly because of monthly billing charges).
- The excess the quote is based on, and the impact of moving it up or down.
- The outpatient limit (per year, in pounds), or a note that outpatient is unlimited on that plan.
- The mental health limit for inpatient and outpatient care.
- The cancer cover description, in plain English, including whether it is full or capped.
- The hospital list you are being quoted on, named.
- The underwriting method (moratorium or full medical underwriting).
- The exclusions the insurer has applied based on your disclosures.
- The add-ons included or excluded (dental, optical, complementary therapy).
If any of those are missing, the quote is not finished. That is the check.
How long does a PMI quote take, and how long is it valid?
An indicative quote from an aggregator or insurer's own calculator takes minutes. A firm quote from a broker typically takes one working day for straightforward individual and family cases, longer if the insurers need to underwrite specific medical disclosures. Firm PMI quotes are generally valid for 30 days, after which insurers re-underwrite and re-price.
For SME group PMI, a firm quote usually takes three to five working days because the insurers need to build the scheme against the employee census.
Get a Private Medical Insurance quote from The Broking Group
If you would like a whole-of-market PMI quote covering all five major UK health insurers, on identical cover, ready to compare side by side, get in touch. You can also see the full Private Medical Insurance product page or check the glossary for the underwriting terms above. It is a 20-minute call, and you will get firm quotes back within one working day for personal or family cover.
Call 01270 694939 or email info@thebrokinggroup.co.uk.