Pruhealth gym loophole Article Discussion

mark1024

I did the top Nuffield screening last week which I feel was well worth the money, so long as I was at platinum. Should be no problem for both of us keeping at this level then, and we also have access to most of the virgin gyms around the country now, after recent changes.

Cheers

sly_dog_jonah

Hoping either PMISpecialist or someone else has experience of this situation:-

My wife and I currently have seperate individual PruHealth policies (Vitality) and are both coming up to our 2nd policy renewal in September (3 weeks apart). We are currently both on Platinum and should get enough points each to be on Platinum for next year too. We've made no claims at all, hence we should get 100% of this year's premium off the renewal premium. We are both vitality gym members (inside m25 nuffield) and cineworld unlimited members.

Now that we are married (we were engaged when we first joined), it would make sense to combine our two policies into a family policy (for example to reduce the combined platinum target from 4000 to 3000 points), but I've just got off the phone to PruHealth and they say one of us has to cancel and then be added onto the other's policy. That individual's accrued discount, status and points would be lost, so we'd only get around 50% off our family policy premiums next year (since the premium would be around twice as high?), which would amount to £30-40 per month I imagine.

The person on the phone didn't sound too assured of his answers, although he had put me on hold to speak to the admin dept. So has anyone been able to get them to combine policies in the past without losing accrued discount? Or are we stuck with keeping the two individual policies? And if we did combine the policies, would there be any hassles or costs migrating the gym membership and cineworld over to the family policy?

(We're both 30 at renewal date, no health issues apart from an exemption for knee surgery I had prior to joining.)

Thanks in advance

PMISpecialist_2

sly_dog_jonah wrote: »

Hoping either PMISpecialist or someone else has experience of this situation:-

My wife and I currently have seperate individual PruHealth policies (Vitality) and are both coming up to our 2nd policy renewal in September (3 weeks apart). We are currently both on Platinum and should get enough points each to be on Platinum for next year too. We've made no claims at all, hence we should get 100% of this year's premium off the renewal premium. We are both vitality gym members (inside m25 nuffield) and cineworld unlimited members.

Now that we are married (we were engaged when we first joined), it would make sense to combine our two policies into a family policy (for example to reduce the combined platinum target from 4000 to 3000 points), but I've just got off the phone to PruHealth and they say one of us has to cancel and then be added onto the other's policy. That individual's accrued discount, status and points would be lost, so we'd only get around 50% off our family policy premiums next year (since the premium would be around twice as high?), which would amount to £30-40 per month I imagine.

The person on the phone didn't sound too assured of his answers, although he had put me on hold to speak to the admin dept. So has anyone been able to get them to combine policies in the past without losing accrued discount? Or are we stuck with keeping the two individual policies? And if we did combine the policies, would there be any hassles or costs migrating the gym membership and cineworld over to the family policy?

(We're both 30 at renewal date, no health issues apart from an exemption for knee surgery I had prior to joining.)

Thanks in advance

Hi sly_dog_jonah,

There is a plus and a minus in lapsing one policy and putting one of you on the other to form a joint policy.

The plus point you already know i.e. you only need 3000 points rather than 2 x 200 points to get to platinum.

The minus is that if you have a joint policy and one of you claims it is going to affect both of you i.e. you could both do not get the 100% of last years premium off next years whereas if you have two separate policies and one claims heavily one policy will remain unaffected.

So you will have to weigh this up yourself.

If you do add one on to the other add her on to because of your knee problem. (after two years any condition you had five years prior to your join date becomes eligible to be claimed upon).

Also if you add her on via a new ´moratorium´ from your renewal date she is automatically platinum and gets all the platinum perks. However she will pay the full subscription charge i.e. she will not get 100% off last years premium.

My advice to you is if you can comfortably keep scoring 2000 points each. Then keep them two separate policies if possible. If you think one of you is going to struggle then it may be benificial from the points scoring angle to go for a joint policy.

Remember all the different ways of scoring the points are reset every year when your points go back to 0. So you can repeat what you did last year to get to platinum if you want.

Plus you roll over a % of your points each year, so it gets easier.

Year 1 10%
Year 2 15%
Year 3 20%
Year 4+ 25%

sly_dog_jonah

Many thanks for the info PMISpecialist.

Neither of us have claimed in the past two years and are unlikely to (touch wood) anytime soon, but I appreciate the potential risk of losing the whole premium discount due to one person's claims. I now (since joining 2 years ago) get private health with my employer (currently CIGNA, soon to be AXA - bummer that they don't use PruHealth!) so am very unlikely to claim on the PruHealth since there is no excess or additional premium to pay on the work package. I just have to pay 40% tax on the benefit. So I'm basically using the PruHealth for the gym and other benefits.

The missus on the other hand doesn't get private health with work so is more likely to claim at some point in future, so it does make sense to keep things separate for now.

The point you make about my existing condition is an interesting one, but I only had the ACL replacement surgery 6 weeks before joining PruHealth so it will be 3 more years until it 'expires'. It was a great methodology for a cheap rehab though

The only reason why we're struggling points wise is that we've been quite a bit slacker with the gym this year (both preferring exercising outside to be honest, and didn't have to keep up 2 visits per week to stay free) and we didn't get a fitness assessment done in the first half of the year (so we couldn't squeeze two in). To offset this and get us over the threshold for platinum we're both going to get a full health screen done, plus tick the easy points boxes on the vitality website. Maybe next year we should look at getting some Polar heart rate monitors, although my cycle to work is under 30mins so wouldn't qualify as an activity despite the excellent workout it provides.

In conclusion, I think we'll keep up the two individual policies. Thanks again for the very helpful tips.

PMISpecialist_2

sly_dog_jonah wrote: »

Many thanks for the info PMISpecialist.

Neither of us have claimed in the past two years and are unlikely to (touch wood) anytime soon, but I appreciate the potential risk of losing the whole premium discount due to one person's claims. I now (since joining 2 years ago) get private health with my employer (currently CIGNA, soon to be AXA - bummer that they don't use PruHealth!) so am very unlikely to claim on the PruHealth since there is no excess or additional premium to pay on the work package. I just have to pay 40% tax on the benefit. So I'm basically using the PruHealth for the gym and other benefits.

The missus on the other hand doesn't get private health with work so is more likely to claim at some point in future, so it does make sense to keep things separate for now.

The point you make about my existing condition is an interesting one, but I only had the ACL replacement surgery 6 weeks before joining PruHealth so it will be 3 more years until it 'expires'. It was a great methodology for a cheap rehab though

The only reason why we're struggling points wise is that we've been quite a bit slacker with the gym this year (both preferring exercising outside to be honest, and didn't have to keep up 2 visits per week to stay free) and we didn't get a fitness assessment done in the first half of the year (so we couldn't squeeze two in). To offset this and get us over the threshold for platinum we're both going to get a full health screen done, plus tick the easy points boxes on the vitality website. Maybe next year we should look at getting some Polar heart rate monitors, although my cycle to work is under 30mins so wouldn't qualify as an activity despite the excellent workout it provides.

In conclusion, I think we'll keep up the two individual policies. Thanks again for the very helpful tips.

If you joined on a moratorium basis with Pru after two years all pre existing conditions are eligible to be claimed on.

So someone could have cancer today join Pru tomorrow and in two years time can claim on the cancer.

A Pre- existing condition (in regard to pruhealth´s New moratorium)Pruhealth is a medical condition that you have had 5 years before your policy start date.

If you cycle to work and you can attach a ´fitbug´ to your leg (the lower down the better) even if you slip it in your sock you can score points that way too.

swift_gti

Can anyone answer these few questions I have regarding the gym memberships with this insurance plan.. I've just found this thread and it sounds really interesting as I am looking to gain some weight and my partner is looking to loose some, so we could probably benefit from gym membership!

How does payment for the gym work.. it is monthly with the cost based on your current vitality status ?

We have recently got engaged and I read about a family plan which only required 3000 points for platinum instead of 2000.. would we be better off going for this rather than seperate policys?
As it would be easier to reach the maximum discount with two of us working at it.
(I presume we can each gain seperate points for fitness checkup, fitbug etc.. ?)

Lastly, once you have reach platinum vitality points do the rewards (gym pricing etc..) remain at platinum prices for the remainder of the policy ?(until renewal)
As I'm sure I saw something like this a while back where you had to keep going to the gym at least twice a week or something..

Any advice would be appreciated!

west12_2

Slightly off topic: Please desist from posting so unconstructively, dacoach and Quentin. I read this thread as I am interested in PruHealth as a customer. I find posts by other individuals interesting and valuable. You may think your politicking is valuable - but it has the opposite effect entirely on me - it has nothing to do with the product or any money saving strategies, and makes this thread tiresome and petty. I politely and strongly ask you to stop, and let other individuals continue making the useful comments that they are currently leaving.

Back to topic: I've always been paying the £25pcm on Platinum to use all Virgin gyms in London (save for the classics!) but as posted above, I understand now that if you have standard club membership (£15pcm), Virgin have this month decided to throw in access for free to all other gyms! So is there any benefit to me paying this extra £10?! Why are Pru still offering this - is there a limitation to how many cross club visits to get with the standard membership while the £25 is unlimited, maybe?

dacouch

This is an open forum an your view is just as valid as my view. Quentin and my posts are just as valid on this thread as yours or PMIspecialists posts

Quentin

west12 wrote: »

I read this thread as I am interested in PruHealth as a customer.

We are all entitled to read the threads here in the knowledge that no-one is abusing them by cynically posting disguised adverts for their own business in the guise of being "helpful".

It is against the rules, which we all agree to when we join.

PMISpecialist is well aware of the rules, and knows no-one else takes advantage of requests for help to further their own businesses, yet just carries on regardless.

Not only that he is prepared to stoop to using aliases to post items that he can in turn answer in his cynical way to do more promotion. He also breaks the rules by abusing the pm system to sell his wares.

He has been reminded of the rules, (even had his question on "how can I use the forum within the rules to pass on my deals" answered time and again), but despite not getting MSE approval still persists.

Fortunately, the insurance forum has not turned into a spam zone, (apart from his activities), and is a great source of informed advice which is freely given by many experts who never attempt personal gain!

I am sorry you don't like my posts, but you cannot expect to "like" everything you read here.

Don't expect your post to have any success in getting me to stop. PMISpecialist knows how to get these posts stopped. He should stop his touting, and the posts will stop!

Wutang_2

west12 wrote: »

Slightly off topic: Please desist from posting so unconstructively, dacoach and Quentin. I read this thread as I am interested in PruHealth as a customer. I find posts by other individuals interesting and valuable. You may think your politicking is valuable - but it has the opposite effect entirely on me - it has nothing to do with the product or any money saving strategies, and makes this thread tiresome and petty. I politely and strongly ask you to stop, and let other individuals continue making the useful comments that they are currently leaving.

Quentin and Dacouch, DO NOT DESIST. (?) West12, if you are interested in Pru benefits, take a look through your brochure - all will be explained.

PMISPECIALISTINSELFPROMOTION, is breaking the rule that everyone else seems able to stick to, so its not tiresome or petty. Instead, you guys who can't find out the information by yourself, encourage him to tout for business.