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Health Insurance

4 myths about medical insurance busted

When the time comes to buy health insurance for you and your family, you may be unsure as to what benefits you will receive, and which ones are not automatically covered. There are many myths regarding individual health insurance plans, and in this article, we will try and clear up some of the more obvious ones.

Myth 1: I don’t need health insurance because I am young and fit

This myth is one of the most common when it comes to personal health insurance, but anyone can be taken ill at any time, and it is best to get health insurance cover from a young age. Also, because you are young and healthy, your premiums will be a lot lower than if you were to wait and take out health insurance in middle-age, for example.

Myth 2: I do not have to declare any pre-existing illnesses

This attitude is totally wrong. When signing up for health insurance, you must be honest and declare any pre-existing illnesses and diseases you may be suffering from. If you fail to declare these pre-existing conditions, you may find your insurer will discover your medical history and reject your request for a claim.

Myth 3: I won’t get health insurance because I’m a smoker

A lot of people think that because they are a smoker they will not be eligible for medical insurance, but this is another myth. Even though smokers are more at risk of health problems, most health insurance providers will offer a range of policies to cover them. Nevertheless, since smokers are more at risk from certain illnesses and diseases compared to non-smokers, the premiums will be higher.

Myth 4: Pre-existing illnesses are covered from the start

In fact, the opposite is true, with most health insurance policies coming with a waiting period of 30-days, except for accidents, before you can make any claim. For pre-existing illnesses, the waiting period can be anything from two to four years.

As you can see, it is important to take the time to compare different medical insurance policies online, so you can choose the one most suitable for your needs.

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Health Insurance

What’s the best way to compare health care plans?

Health insurance differs from other types of insurance, and it is really important to compare different health care insurance plans.

These plans can widely differ from each other in three or four main areas, and understanding them can allow you to compare policies on a like for like basis.

These differences relate to types of costs, where the treatment can be carried out and by whom, and the type of medical care provided.

Cost

Every insurance policy has a premium, but health insurance plans have other features that can affect the overall price of the policy. These costs can be referred to by different names, but are normally called deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance.

A deductible is similar to an excess on most other types of insurance, but is normally a much higher percentage of claim retention than say a car or home insurance policy.

Co-payments and Co-insurance are costs that relate to two different areas.

Co-payments are normally for relatively small areas of payment, such as frequent visits to a primary care physician, and Co-insurance normally relates to an overall percentage cost of any overall treatment that the policyholder incurs.

Taken together, these costs can be quite considerable. A thorough comparison of healthcare plans beforehand can help clarify which companies are likely to be most cost-effective.

In / Out Networks

This is a key feature of many healthcare plans.

A network refers to a specific number of hospitals, clinics and clinicians, that the insurance company will have arranged contracts with, and will specify where any treatment needed will have to be carried out, and by whom.

These hospitals and clinicians, are referred to as being in network, i.e. centres that the insurance company works with.

If a policyholder wants to seek treatment at another hospital or clinic, then these are referred to as being out of network, and either will not be covered by the policy, or will cost significantly more than ‘in network’ treatment.

This area of networks affects the choice of clinicians. For some people, this will be an issue, for others not so much so, but it is important to be aware of it when comparing policies.

Pre-existing conditions

This is a term that many people will be familiar with. It is really important to check whether the health care plan excludes any existing medical condition, that has either been treated in the past or currently exist. Policies differ widely in this area.

Aside from pre-existing conditions, it is also important to check if the policy covers recurrence of other conditions that might not be pre-existing conditions but occur for the first time during the time of the policy.

These might be treated successfully, but then recur later. Some policies might exclude such a recurrence, others would not.

Dental / Optician costs

A number of healthcare plans specifically exclude any type of dental or optician related treatment and costs. If a plan does include them, they are likely to be quite expensive. It is always worth getting alternative quotes for these types of policies, and then being able to compare them on a similar basis.

Finding the best health care plan is easy, all you need to do is make the most of our comparison tool on Compare Insurance – make your application now and get results in minutes.

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Health Insurance

Is your health insurance as good as it can be? Find a better deal online in minutes

Having health care plans in place is highly important, but what’s also important is making sure that plan is the best one for you. Does it actually cover the kinds of health issues you are likely to face? And do the premiums actually represent good value for money?

If you think there might be a better way for you to find low cost health insurance, there is! Use a comparison tool today and find the best deals available for you.

Browsing available plans

Whether you’re looking for individual health insurance plans or plans that cover the whole family, you can find them easily by using a comparison tool. All you need to do is input the details of the plan you want, and let the tool do the work – it will draw quotes from the best health insurance companies the world over, then present those quotes to you for you to decide which is the best deal.

This offers you the best way to buy health insurance that’s fit for your purposes. Whether you prefer low cost health insurance packages, or you want the most comprehensive coverage possible, you will be able to see at a glance who is willing to provide the coverage you need.

Choosing the best deal long-term

Remember, just because you have used a comparison tool to find the best deal for your health insurance once, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it again. You should be regularly checking the available deals open to you, to ensure you’re always getting the best prices.

You don’t always have to switch to a new provider, either. Sometimes simply making your current insurance provider know there is a better deal out there for you will be enough for them to offer you a deal. Either they will match the price, or offer other incentives.

It has never been easier to get a range of affordable health insurance quotes, all tailored to the coverage that you want. All you need to do is use a comparison tool such as the one you’ll find on Compare Insurance, and you can have a range of quotes in minutes.

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Health Insurance

The factors that could affect your health insurance

Insurance is an unapproachable topic for many – there are stigmas that it’s confusing, unfair, or too complex to worth bothering with. One of the biggest myths is that it’s a blanket rate for everyone wanting to invest in a health insurance policy. The reality is that there are several different factors that could affect how much you pay for your health insurance each month, as well as the packages you could be entitled to.

If you’re looking to buy health insurance, read on to learn about the things that could alter the costs.

Age

Though it might seem unfair (you can’t help ageing, after all!) your health cover costs are likely to rise the older you are. This is simply because you’re more likely to make a claim as you become more susceptible to illness and injuries. Keeping yourself as healthy as possible into old age will help to minimise this higher cost.

Living location

Socioeconomic differences are a real thing, and they could also have an impact on the price of your health insurance. Especially with private health insurance, the area of the UAE you live in could affect how much you pay; some of the factors within your area that will affect you include the surrounding facilities available, the quality of accommodation, and the individual fees charged by the specialist.

Claim history

Applying for health insurance with a clean history of no prior claims will most definitely get you a cheaper payment rate than, say, if you’ve made four previous claims on a particular policy. This could also impact the premiums available to you, and the renewal time of your insurance.

Adding family members

When investing in medical repatriation, you might also have the option to add other family members onto your plan. Obviously, this will again drive the price of the health insurance plan up – as you might find yourself being offered discounts or other deals for choosing to add other people.

If you’re looking for more information on comparing insurances in the UAE, look no further than Compare Insurance. Browse our website today for the full range of insurance comparison resources carefully curated by our experts.

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Health Insurance

Use a comparison tool to browse healthcare plans before you buy

Health insurance coverage is an essential consideration, but you never know what’s around the next corner. Even if you’re currently healthy, we can all fall victim to ill-health without seeing it coming. Health cover can help you stay financially secure through those difficult times – but how do you find the health insurance plans for family?

With so many different health care plans available, use a comparison tool to find the right one for you.

Browse before investing

There is a multitude of health cover plans available, covering all manner of different ailments. You can find health insurance that covers a general list of common complaints, such as cancer and diabetes, etc. Or you can also find cover that deals with specific illnesses, possibly as a result of your genetic predisposition.

Comparing and contrasting health insurance plans can be difficult – with so many different conditions and exemptions, it can be hard to navigate and compare one deal to the next. If you try and find a plan by going to each provider individually, you run the risk of being swamped in information and making a bad choice.

Using the right comparison tool

This is where a comparison tool comes in useful. In just a few minutes you can put your details in and decide the nature of the cover you’re looking for. With that, you’ll get a number of quotes back almost instantly from a range of insurance providers, allowing you to easily compare and contrast coverage and prices.

The joy of it is that you get to choose the nature of the cover you want from the outset – you decide the things that you want your policy to cover. Then you get quotes back for THAT policy, and you can choose who offers you the best deal. There’s no need to browse every detail of each policy to make sure you’re getting the coverage you need.

Making the right choice

Health insurance is an invaluable investment, and if you want to make sure you spend your money the right way, use a service like Compare Insurance to find yourself the best possible deal.

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Health Insurance

Are you paying too much for your health insurance? There may be a cheaper deal for you

Health cover is an essential consideration if you want to ensure you’re not troubled by mounting medical bills in the event of a run of bad health. After all, when you are busy recovering, the last thing you need is financial worries.

Many people fall into the trap, however, of choosing a health insurance package and then sticking with it even though the price of the premium goes up. There may be a better deal available for you by shopping around.

Using a comparison tool

The best way to find short term health insurance that better suits your budget is to use an online comparison tool. It couldn’t be easier, all you need to do is input the details of the cover you’re looking to arrange and the system will generate a variety of quotes from different insurance companies.

This allows you to contrast and compare health insurance rates at a glance. There’s no need to take notes, no need to input your details with every single insurance company, and no chance of you getting lost in the data.

You can simply browse the different packages available to you, compare them to your current coverage and select a new deal if you find a better one.

How often can you shop around?

The simple answer is – as much as you like! You can keep an eye on the market rates to ensure you’re paying a fair amount for your health insurance. If you find a cheaper deal, you can present it to your insurance company and see if they can match it for you. If they do, you won’t have to switch, but if they don’t you can arrange your cover with the new insurance provider.

Either way, you get the same outcome, namely paying less for your vital health insurance cover.

Use the technology to your advantage

Comparison tools and online quotes exist to serve you, the customer, by making it easier than ever to find more affordable health insurance quotes. Just make sure you use a reliable tool, such as ours at Compare Insurance.

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Health Insurance

Why you should invest in health insurance, even if you’re healthy

Balancing your finances can always be a tricky prospect, so much so that the idea of adding an extra insurance payment when you think you don’t really need it is something you choose to avoid. This is what many people do with the best health insurance – they presume that because they’re currently healthy, they don’t need it.

The reality, however, is that getting health insurance is one of the smartest investments you can make – no matter what your current physical condition is.

Why should you take out health insurance?

You may be perfectly healthy now, which leads you to wonder why you should bother taking out a health insurance policy. The truth is that we’re all fallible and any one of us can be taken ill or have an accident at any time. You can never tell what’s around the corner, but taking out health insurance helps to give you a little bit more peace of mind that you and your family are protected if something happens.

A period of illness or a bad accident is a stressful enough time as it is, worrying about health bills and other payments is an extra level of stress you don’t need. A small monthly payment to a health insurance plan can help to alleviate that worry, and allow you to focus all of your energy and attention on your recovery.

How do you choose a plan?

So how do you find health insurance that suits you? There are many different plans available from multiple providers, so the thing to do is use a specialist comparison tool to compare and contrast all the features and benefits to find yourself the best deal that you possibly can.

Taking out general accident cover is a wise idea. In terms of specific health issues, it’s wise to consult a doctor and discover if there are any problems you may be prone to, whether it’s through your lifestyle, occupation, or genetics, and take out a plan that covers those problems.

Whichever plan you choose, it’s better to have some form of health insurance than none – even if you’re currently healthy. Compare health insurance rates and policies today and find your perfect plan.

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Health Insurance

Warning signs that you need to reassess your health insurace plan

Knowing which insurance provider to go with and plan to choose can be tricky in the first place. And once you’ve gone through the tedious process of choosing one it can be tempting to stick with it for longer than you necessarily should. As our needs change, so does the type of insurance plan that we require.

Is it time for you to compare cheap health insurance plans? Here is a list of warning signs to look out for.

Your health has changed

If you have previously been a generally healthy person who rarely sees the doctor but have recently had a new diagnosis, or are experiencing ongoing symptoms and suspect that they will need medical investigation and potentially treatment, you should consider looking at your plan again to check that it still meets your needs. This means you will be covered for all instances.

Your risk has increased

With the current COVID-19 pandemic, everyone is more at risk. This is not just due to the dangers of the virus but because public health services around the world are now under intense strain. It’s currently much harder to be seen at the local clinic for something that previously would have been addressed and treated quickly, such as a common ear infection. Unless your condition is an emergency, it can take weeks to get an online appointment and prescription. Private cover can help to speed things up.

You’re paying a large premium for cover you never use

You are struggling to pay your monthly health insurance premium and have only claimed for coverage a minimal number of times over the last few years. We never suggest getting rid of your health insurance, however, there is no harm in exploring other options and shopping around.

You never seem to be covered when you need to be

If you often find yourself using services that are not covered by your plan, this is a telltale sign that your current health insurance plan isn’t working for you. Your plan should enable you to access a wide range of services in your area, that are near to your home, easily accessible and without additional cost. This is more important now than ever with social distancing restrictions in place and limitations to how far people can travel.

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Health Insurance

How does health insurance work?

It can be the bane of many people’s lives. Deciding exactly which health insurance provider to choose and which plan by that provider will be the best has always been a challenge, but one way you can make the whole process simpler is by understanding exactly how health insurance companies work.

What is it to you?

Affordable health insurance is effectively a subscription to healthcare. As you pay a monthly premium in order to stay insured, you can then receive any healthcare that you might need in this period for a much lower cost than if you were to be uninsured. Since you’ve already paid into the health insurance “pot”, you’ll have significantly less, or even nothing, to pay in the case of any medical emergencies happening to you or anyone else on your health insurance plan.

What about more expensive emergencies?

They’ll have their costs lowered just as the cost of cheaper procedures are, or the cost might even be removed entirely. This can be afforded because insurance is a sharing of risk, between everyone with insurance. Since the majority of people are healthy the majority of the time, the amount that people pay in is used to make sure anyone unhealthy can be treated. This all comes around again when the healthy people get ill, and take some money from the collective pot in order to get themselves treated. Insurance is, put simply, millions of people working together to keep everyone’s lives affordable in a time of crisis.

What does all this mean for me?

If you have a better understanding of how health insurance works, it becomes easier to understand why different plans cover different procedures. For example, if you’re paying very little in, it’s fair to assume that you won’t get as much out since you’re not contributing much to other people’s procedures. Additionally, it will help you to understand why putting more people on a plan makes the plan more expensive, since there’s a higher risk of someone being ill and taking out of their cash plan.

Ultimately, health insurance is designed to protect everyone that uses it, albeit to different extents based on price. If you want the most bang for your buck, it’s always best to use Compare Insurance to compare Health Insurance providers tools to guarantee a wide coverage for a low price.

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Health Insurance

Key factors that influence your health insurance costs

Seeking out a health plan can be a lengthy and confusing process. You could pore over hundreds of different plans from dozens of providers and not really know what you’re looking for, and especially why some plans cost so much more. In this article, we expose a few things that can change your private health insurance costs, and discover why they’re so important.

What your health insurance covers

Of course, what your health insurance allows you to do is an incredibly important part of sorting a plan. One which only covers life-threatening situations, for example, is not going to be quite as useful as one that has you covered for routine check-ups and more general appointments. More comprehensive plans will always be expensive, so if you see a cheaper plan it’s always risky to assume that you’ll get a much better deal with that option.

Any previous health conditions

If you’ve got pre-existing conditions or any other health issues, you might find health plans more expensive to find. For example, someone with a history of smoking, or that has previously suffered from a heart attack, will find themselves with a much more expensive bill because they are more likely to return to the hospital in the future. Although this doesn’t explain the difference from provider to provider, understanding this will inform you on why you may have cheaper or more costly plans than a family member.

Dependents

Some plans will allow your family members or loved ones to visit a doctor or a hospital under your insurance plan, and these are known as dependents. Of course, a plan with dependents will be more expensive than one without, simply because it has to cover more people, but with a good amount of research you may find that this is cheaper than getting a different plan for each family member.

If you need a new health plan, you need to compare medical insurance quotes to make sure that you get the best deal. To do so, visit www.CompareInsurance.ae for a wide variety of options accessible to different budgets to find the perfect plan for you.

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