Chronic conditions

Comprehensive Health Insurance Cover

Private medical insurance provides cover for short-term treatment of acute conditions, ie disease, illness or injury that starts after your policy has begun and is likely to respond quickly to treatment. It does not provide cover for long-term chronic conditions.

What is a chronic condition?

A chronic condition is a disease, illness or injury, which has at least one of the following characteristics:

• It continues indefinitely and has no known cure.
• It comes back or is likely to come back.
• It is permanent.
• You need to be rehabilitated or specially trained to cope with it.
• It needs long-term monitoring.

In many cases a chronic condition can be effectively controlled with medicines and preventative treatment which can usually be obtained through the NHS. As a result these conditions are not covered by your insurance. This is true whether they emerge before or after you take up cover.

Please note

Chronic conditions can also lead to additional acute conditions. If these conditions relate to a chronic condition that existed prior to taking out cover, they will not be covered as they relate to a pre-existing condition. If they relate to a chronic condition that developed after cover began, they will be covered.

Please refer to our Policy document for full product details and for a summary refer to the Policy summary.