A question about private insurance

Hello, I hope you can help me with this. If there is any rule about it.
My husband is being offered a job in the UK. They will provide us with private insurance. I understand that private insurance does not substitute  the NHS. It just helps skip some waiting times and possibly getting a private room if you have to stay in a hospital. What I was not able to figure out is if the private insurance can deny coverage do to pre-existing conditions or bad health.
For example here in the US my husband cannot get private health insurance on his own do to his weight, but if he gets it trough work they cannot deny him coverage. Does it work the same way with private insurance in the UK?
Thank you very much.

They can exclude pre-existing conditions.  I would ask which company they use and check it out.  Because of the NHS I don't think that private insurance through work here is the same as it is in the US. 

I just wanted to clarify that I know they will not cover any preexisting conditions or chronic conditions. What I can not understand is if they can completely deny you coverage. But maybe there is not a rule about that in the UK. I don't know.

I just wanted to clarify that I know they will not cover any preexisting conditions or chronic conditions. What I can not understand is if they can completely deny you coverage. But maybe there is not a rule about that in the UK. I don't know.

What little I know about private health care is that the provider can deny you coverage on pre-existing conditions and you may be rated for you husbands weight. If the healthcare company cant provide the service, your husband will be referred to the NHS.

I only know this wee bit from working at Aviva Life for a few years and getting random paperwork being sent from one division to another, so the information may not be accurate.

If youre in the UK, your best bet is to call a provider and see if you can speak to someone who can assist you.

This is Avivas local dial number (open 9am-5pm UK time Mon-Fri): +44 1603 622200 which will send you to their switchboard. They should be able to transfer you to someone in HealthCare who can assist you with your questions.

I used to work for a UK private health insurance company. For them (at the time) and for most of their competitors, the general policy was they would could (and usually would) exclude you for pre-existing conditions. So high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. However, some companies had contracts with us where there were no exclusions at all. So if you entered with a pre-existing thyroid condition, you'd get coverage for it if and until it became chronic.

So it really well may depend upon your employers contract with the insurer.

As for weight, I can't recall exactly, but I seem to remember that at the time, there were no weight exclusions... but that may have changed and may differ from insurer to insurer. Still, they would only have exclused weight-related issues (and yes, that's a fuzzy area). So if you broke your leg in a car accident, that would be covered.

Aside from private insurance helping you jump the queue and getting private rooms, many of them also have nice coverage for things like physical therapy, chiro, osteos, etc. that can be hard or impossible to get on the NHS.

Feel free to ask me more if you'd like though like I said, it will largely depend upon your employers contract (their HR people will have the details). And also, it's been a while since I've worked in the industry.

If you know who the insurer is, they generally also have quite extensive info online.

HTH.

Thank you, we need to have a chat with  the HR people.

So if I understood you correctly, the private insurance will not necessarily deny coverage completely but they will just not cover anything related to preexisting conditions?

Thank you, we need to have a chat with  the HR people.

So if I understood you correctly, the private insurance will not necessarily deny coverage completely but they will just not cover anything related to preexisting conditions?

That is certainly the industry norm though it's possible it's changed a lot in the few years since I've worked there... some places may be looking to adopt a more American model but I can't see that it would be in the UK private insurance industry's best interests to exclude you entirely based on any pre-existing conditions.

That said, if you present with a whole host of problems you might have some issues I suppose.

Also, bear in mind that you aren't looking to your private cover to replace the NHS entirely anyway. Most of them won't even see you until you've been to your NHS doctor first (though this is not always the case). For many Americans, the NHS is a revelation and I've certainly known a few people who had private insurance through their UK employers and never even used it. YMMV, some people have had terrible experiences with the NHS but there's no reason to assume you will have problems... you just need to be prepared for a different system.

Thank you very much.