Private hospital travel insurance

peterth125

After after a nightmare stay in a public hospital in Zante does anyone know if it is possible to take out an insurance policy that covers private care only. Thank you 

Sandtree

You can get international private medical insurance from the likes of Bupa or Axa and some do offer a "short term" option but you are talking months of cover not days. 

You would imagine that travel insurance aimed at the high net worth is likely to cover private hospital treatment even if public is available to you but then you are going to be paying for £20,000 limits on holidays, an advised sale etc and not just for the upgrade in medical cover.

Bare in mind also that in some countries, like the UK, private hospitals dont cater for A&E etc and so if you are in a car accident and taken by ambulance you'll always be going to public hospital first (though can transfer to private once stable)

Neruda

Presumably you are talking about travel insurance. It would not matter to you if your insurance also covered public hospitals; what is important is to make sure that it covered private treatment when required. For this as for so many other matters the comparison websites are useless: you need to look at the actual policy documents. Some of them make it clear that the insurance only pays for treatment in public facilities, while others do not have this limitation.

I faced this issue a couple of years ago when preparing to visit the Ukraine, a country which has dreadful public health hospitals and pretty good private medical care. It was a nuisance but not particularly difficult finding a policy that seemed to be suitable, although since I did not need to make a claim I do not know how it would have worked out in practice.

Dr_Crypto

BUPA aren’t offering travel insurance any more. I used to have it as a benefit of my policy but it was withdrawn in May. 

Sandtree

Dr_Crypto said:

BUPA aren’t offering travel insurance any more. I used to have it as a benefit of my policy but it was withdrawn in May. 

They arent offering travel but are still offering international PMI