Pruhealth scrapping its free/discounted gym loophole in November. Discussion

Bargain_Rzl

Yes! While the cost of the BASIC insurance premium is reviewed up every year due to age and inflation, this is then discounted according to the Vitality status you've achieved in the previous year.

Remember that in Year 1 you're receiving an automatic discount of 25%.

So let's say you're currently (in Year 1) paying £30p/m. This means your basic premium is £40p/m.

Let's say next year they raise it by 10% for age and inflation, so your basic premium is now £44p/m.

They then discount this, based on your Vitality status, by anything up to 100% of the previous year's basic premium (assuming you haven't claimed on the insurance). Discount is 25% for Bronze, 50% for Silver, 75% for Gold and 100% for Platinum.

So, using my hypothetical figures above, here's how it'll be calculated for Year 2, based on each Vitality status at end of Year 1:

In Year 1 you were paying £40 - 25% = £30
In Year 2 your basic premium is £44p/m
If you're Bronze, subtract 25% of £40 = £10
If you're Silver, subtract 50% of £40 = £20
If you're Gold, subtract 75% of £40 = £30
If you're Platinum, subtract 100% of £40 = £40

So your Year 2 monthly premium based on the above model would be
£34 if you ended Year 1 on Bronze
£24 if you ended Year 1 on Silver
£14 if you ended Year 1 on Gold
£4 if you ended Year 1 on Platinum :j :j :j

Plus your gym fees.

As you can see, there are MAJOR savings to be made.

If you have made claims on your insurance during Year 1, you can still qualify for a discount in Year 2 of 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of what's left of the Year 1 premium after all claims have been deducted.

TooNice_2

Got it, thanks. I have a bit of a dilemma now. I've been offered £26 per month at Fitness First on a student membership. That compares favourably to the cost of the insurance alone in year 1. Actually, no matter how I look at it, it will be cheaper than the insurance + gym membership at any Vitality status (minimum £8 at Platinum as I am inside the M25).

Could someone check that my calculations are correct if I join in September (how long does the application take?):

Year 1:
September - October: 25+25
October - November: 25
November - December (Silver): 38
December - March (Gold): (3*22)
March - September (Platinum): (6*8)

Total gym membership: £227

+ 12x Premium (Say £25): £300

- £85 Cashback (quidco)

= £442 (about £37 per month)

And in Year 2 it simplifies to:

12x [(Change in Age + Inflation, say £5) + £8]

= £156 (£13 per month)

Which works out to £25 per months over 2 years. Not worse off than the Fitness First offer assuming that both the £8 and the £26 is fixed over two years. In real term, pru-health will work out a bit more expensive because I am putting more in the first year (so I miss out on interest) although it can be offset if I make plans to travel to Paris once

Did I work the numbers right?


Edit: Actually, Pru-health works out cheaper unless my premium is more than £25; I just worked out the NPV to be just under £574 with Pru-health, and just under £590 with Fitness First (0.5% monthly interest) based on the above numbers. Now I have to weight the fact that I can't be a student for life, so I'll eventually have to join up to this deal anyway (unless something better comes up), and the fact that something better may come up or policies may change for the worse in Year 2.

Zoroaster9

TooNice wrote: »

Which works out to £25 per months over 2 years. Not worse off than the Fitness First offer assuming that both the £8 and the £26 is fixed over two years. In real term, pru-health will work out a bit more expensive because I am putting more in the first year (so I miss out on interest) although it can be offset if I make plans to travel to Paris once.

Don't forget that if you ever go to the cinema you can get a disgustingly cheap Cineworld pass.

And you do also get health insurance (even if you plan never to use it)...

There is also a nice incentive bonus of going through Pru. If I knew I needed to go to the gym to earn points to make it cheap - I think I'm much more likely to go and workout.

If you go regularly for a number of years you'll also be primed to uber-cheap gym once you graduate - which would otherwise cost you a fortune.

If there isn't much in it, I'd say go through Pru.

brownbabygirl

i agree with zoro. pru comes with so much more that you would appreciate esp when you graduate (champneys, eurostar etc)

TooNice_2

Zoroaster9 wrote: »

And you do also get health insurance (even if you plan never to use it)...

That's a point I've been thinking about. Like most people here, I am looking for the best deal for a gym, ignoring the health insurance aspect. There are a couple of things I do not understand:

1. What exactly is an 'excess of £1000'? Does that mean that the first £1000 is on me if for any claims?

2. What happens if you do make a claim? Does it completely void all discount (e.g. Platinum's 100% fall to 0%) or is it some function dependant on the claims (I can't find the information on the site)? This would be useful to determine whether the pricier price plans is actually worth having. A comprehensive plan would cost a lot more in the first year, but subsequent years should be the same if you hit Platinum status. It might work out to be a bargain in the long term (technically, it maximises the saving of the Platinum status in subsequent years, and would be cheaper than to change plans later on), but this is dependent to what happens to the discount if you I make a claim.

3. Has anyone compared the value for money of the various options? It's easy enough to find which one is the -cheapest-, but could it be worth paying an extra quid and a Core Plan with £0 excess over an Essential Plan with £1000 excess? etc.

In fact how does Pru-health compare to it's competitors?

Bargain_Rzl

1. Yes
2. See the last paragraph of my previous message
3. No idea - I primarily went to PruHealth becaue of the gym deal (though I did, just in case, opt for a plan which includes non-premium London hospital treatment).

TooNice_2

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

If you have made claims on your insurance during Year 1, you can still qualify for a discount in Year 2 of 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of what's left of the Year 1 premium after all claims have been deducted.

I am not sure if I fully understand that (sorry - I've never dealt with insurance before!).

How does the deduction work? For instance, if I injured myself during sports, and made a claim for £500 on a plan that covers the treatment with £0 excess how would that affect my membership fees the following years if I am on Platinum?

As for the first point on excess, wow that's pretty dire and makes the insurance seemingly quite unusable (then again, I might be underestimating the costs of some treatments).

Bargain_Rzl

If you're planning to use it as health insurance, you probably want to get a plan with £0 excess, which will cost more than one with a £1000 excess.

As regards the Year 2 discount if you've made a claim in Year 1, using the example amounts I used before, a premium calculated at £40 a month (of which in Year 1 you're paying £30) is equal to £480 a year. So if you were to make a £500 claim that year, you'd pay full premiums in Year 2 - £44 a month based on my previous example.

PruHealth guarantees that if you make claims one year that are greater than the value of your premiums, they won't increase your premiums for the following year by more than 15%. However because this will have wiped out your discount, it will be a lot more in terms of the amount you're actually paying, especially if, for example, you're going from Year 2 (starting from Platinum and paying a couple of quid a month) into Year 3 following a claim.

As for claiming smaller amounts - using the example for Year 1 of £40 a month/£480 a year again, if you made a claim to the value of £200, the discount you'd receive in Year 2 would be a percentage of the remaining £280 based on your Vitality status. So for Bronze, a discount of £70, for Silver £140, for Gold £210 and for Platinum £280. Your Year 2 premium using my example increase of 10% will start off at £480+10% = £528, so your £528 would be discounted accordingly by the figures above. If you start Year 2 on Bronze, you'd be paying £458 (£38.17p/m), for Silver £388 (£32.33 p/m), for Gold £318 (£26.50p/m) and for Platinum £248 (20.67p/m).

TooNice_2

Ah, I get it now (I think). I guess this mean that I shouldn't go over the top and pick the most fancy plan for £50+ a month just because the year to year cost is negligible for as long as I don't claim if I reckon I won't need that the extras.

harbinger13

Off the topic question - how does (and what is Quidco) cashback? Could someone kindly point to some simplified article.... I am reading the quidco site as well - but missing the point of how I can gain back from my gym+Pru fees. Many thanks.