This is one of the questions most frequently asked by our personal medical insurance customers.
In short, the answer is yes!
Many people assume that if they change health insurance providers, their new private medical insurance policies will only cover them for illnesses they haven’t had yet. In most cases, this won’t be true, and it will be possible to switch to a new healthcare provider which includes medical insurance for pre-existing conditions or for conditions that developed after you entered your current healthcare policy.
People will often mistakenly remain with the same medical insurance provider when they could have qualified for significantly cheaper premiums, and so more affordable health insurance, by switching to someone else, because they’re concerned that a certain medical condition won’t be covered by a new insurer.
There is a process that lets you switch to a new private medical insurance provider without having to go through the underwriting process again. It’s called “continued underwriting” and (although a small number of exceptions could either delay the process or make it impossible) in the majority of cases it’s a very straightforward process that is available on both business health insurance and individual health insurance plans.
Continued underwriting allows a reasonable amount of freedom of movement in the health insurance marketplace, without penalising the customer. This creates healthy competition between providers, too which is good for new customers when they’re considering private healthcare comparisons.
Illnesses that could make moving to another provider difficult include cancer, heart and psychiatric conditions in particular, but even these can qualify for cover subject to certain criteria. In addition, those who’ve had recent cause to visit a consultant or hospital, or those who have treatment pending, might also find it harder to go through this process as well.
If you’d like an informal chat to find out if you can reduce your private health insurance costs and stay covered for any existing conditions, please give us a call, or fill out our contact form and we’ll ring you back.
Request a call-back
