Company Health Insurance - Worth It?

WeB

Morning All,

I’m switching jobs and the company is offering me and my dependants private healthcare as part of my package. I was just curious if this is worth doing, and what the salary/tax implications would be? I’ve never been in this situation and just don’t know enough about it, so thought I’d ask some questions before just going forward with it.

Thanks!

Aretnap

It's worth having, IMO. Particularly good if you have a problem which would take a long time to be treated on the NHS because it isn't life threatening, but still causes significant issues for your quality of life. My wife and I have both had private operations for those type of problems (incontinence after childbirth in her case - a knee injury which stopped me doing long walks and bike rides in mine) arranged in a few weeks, whereas they'd have taken many months or longer on the NHS, and been very glad to have got them done quickly.

Tax implications - assuming your employer is providing it free then normally the cost of the plan is treated as income for tax purposes, so in effect you pay either 20%, 40% or 45% of the actual cost, depending on which tax band you fall into. For my family I think it works out at a little under £200/year off my take-home pay (I'm a basic rate taxpayer), and I regard that as very good value given the use I've had out of it.