Bupa's Select Heart and Cancer Policy

As discussed by Health Insurance News UK, health insurance for cancer varies a lot in the UK. Bupa's Select Heart and Cancer Policy is a company that offers comprehensive health insurance for cancer. The specific nature of this policy makes it a cheaper alternative to other medical insurance policies which cover many different types of illness. Also cancer and heart conditions are the most prevalent serious illnesses that occur in the UK so taking out a specific policy for these two conditions seems prudent.

The Bupa policy covers you for treatment in the UK for eligible cancers at BUPA Heartbeat national access hospitals Bupa has the largest network of hospitals than any other UK private medical company.

The policy covers you for the following:

-surgery
- hospital accommodation and nursing
- diagnostics
- out-patient consultations and therapies
- private hospital treatment following an accident
or emergency admission relating to cancer
- Organ transplants relating to cancer

The only financial restrictions the policy places are on physiotherapy treatments which cannot come to more than £500 in a year and private ambulances that take you for treatment cannot cost more than £60 per trip.

The most important thing about Bupa's cover is that it carries on through to palliative care should your cancer become terminal. A lot of modern cancer treatment is designed to shrink the cancer in order to stabilise or slow the diseases progress. Most private health insurance companies treat cancer as an acute condition. Once it becomes chronic (incurable) they can drop cover all together .

Additional Options
Health checks are available via Bupa. These help you to track and monitor your wellbeing and improve your health and lifestyle choices.

BUPA HealthLine service – a free and confidential support support line which gives guidance and information on health and care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Restrictions
Your cover will be limited if you decide to go with a consultant that is not a Bupa partnership consultant. Partnership Consultants have entered into a voluntary arrangement with Bupa and agree to charge within Bupa monetary limits.

You have to have your treatment at BUPA Heartbeat national access hospitals which is restricting if you want to be treated at a particular hospital of your choice.

The Bupa Bupa's Select Heart and Cancer Policy does not cover the following:

Psychiatric treatment. Sometimes patients with cancer can become severely depressed and treatment for this will not be covered by Bupa even though you could consider that this is part of the treatment for cancer.

Home nursing: If patients cannot recover from their cancer it is quite common for them to want to be treated at home for the last weeks or months of their care.

Complimentary medicine is not covered even though many patients report that complimentary treatments really improve their well being when they have cancer.

Costs
Cost vary depending of the amount of excess you take out. You can include an excess of £100, £150, £200, £250, £500, £1,000 or £2,000 on your policy. Bupa do not have an online quote system and were unwilling to give comparative quotes over the phone. A sales consultant said:

'Our policies are tailor made and we cannot give out standard quotes. Each case is taken individually. We go back seven years to assess your medical history and we also take your lifestyle into account before we give a quotation.'