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Apparently pre-dating the NHS as the Hospital Saving Association, HSA's health savings accounts and medical cover provide an increasingly sought after type of cover. Now, merged and re-branded as Simply Health, they seem to be doing the same thing. On 1 September 2009, HSA, BCWA, HealthSure, LHF and Totally Active were rebranded SimplyHealth collectively covering more than 2.5million people. A new slogan "we can be bothered" gave us a double-take moment and probably won't be as catchy as "quote me happy" but is certainly less annoying than "calm down dear".

A health care plan from Simply Health can provide insurance against the costs of dental procedures, optical healthcare, complementary therapies and consultations with money towards hospitals stays plus lump sums payable on the birth or adoption of a child. They provide cover for individuals, couples or families with any resident children up to 18 years of age covered at the highest option chosen for no extra cost. Simply Health health cash plans are designed to give you cash back towards everyday healthcare including cash back on optical bills, dental bills and on your physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropody, consultation and allergy testing. Dental plans provide money back towards bills for maintenance including check-ups, x-rays and hygienist visits with money back on bills for dental treatments such as fillings, bridges and crowns. Their personal medical healthcare plans promise you will get to see a specialist fast at a time and place to suit you with no limits on the consultation and diagnostic tests.

Unfortunately there isn't much else to say about this company or indeed the products they sell as the devil is in the details and sadly there is no way to know exactly what you might need in the future. A health saving account or health insurance fund unlike other types of insurance generally has much more specific small print and it is always advisable to get as much information first. There isn't a lot of competition out there for private health cover so there is not much incentive to offer any better value. They have us between a rock and a hard place - either take your chances with the free national health service (don't get me started) or pay moderate fees for moderate health coverage. Indeed, the returns being offered for each medical procedure are not anywhere near the level of return you get with things like car insurance where you can be paying £300 a year to protect you for upward of £50,000 in car damages and personal injury. With many health plans you will find yourself paying £300 for £3000 of cover which may not be worth it to some people.

Take note of the actual site you are on to ensure you are looking at the right company. The original UK HSA website was at www.hsa.co.uk - www.hsa.com is for a US based company with a similar service. Now, you need to go to www.simplyhealth.co.uk as www.simplyhealth.com goes nowhere and doesn't appear to be owned by the company you seek - just like their last website address. We've noticed a lot of trial and error search entries on our site such as www.hsahealthcare.co.uk and www.hsahealth.co.uk with only the latter actually going to the site you are looking for. There are so many variations on the name when you try to combine it with the service they provide that your best bet is to either go to the main site and navigate to the service you want, or, type the service you want along with the company name into a search engine. Randomly trying domain names can get you into trouble these days with the number of bugs out there! †

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Your Comments on Simply Health:

20/06/2008 Was very open about the prices, and showed all the different plans and levels in a little chart with all the prices per week so that it was easy to compare. On the same page there was also a summary breakdown of the benefits of each of the different levels of cover. Cover also seemed to be pretty comprehensive and it was very open about the actual extent of the cover such as maximum of 20 nights in hospital. It was also good that you could add children for free. The only thing I didn't like with the site was that there was no option to stop them contacting you, it just said that by going to the quote page you were agreeing that they could contact you.

02/05/2008 Private healthcare plans. Really good site. An idiot's guide to their plan prices and cover available. I wouldn't use their plans myself because I thought they were grossly overpriced for the cover offered.

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