What’s the difference between health insurance and life insurance?
Find out what they cover and how they can help
Life insurance and health insurance can be confused, but they’re not the same thing. An easy way to think about it is – health insurance is for while you’re alive, and life insurance is for after you die.
Here, we look at the two in a bit more detail.
What is health insurance?
Health insurance is cover that helps pick up the cost for private medical care for a future short-term injury or illness. It’s sometimes known as private medical insurance, PMI, or private health insurance.
You’ll get an annual policy for health insurance that you have to renew each year you want to be covered.
What does health insurance cover?
With health insurance, you get specialist private treatment.
You can choose the healthcare benefits you want or need from your insurance provider. With us, you can get access to hundreds of hospitals, cancer care cover, hospital charges, outpatient treatment, mental health support, dental and optical cover, and more.
You can add your loved ones to your policy too, so they’re also protected.
Find out more about what our health insurance covers and doesn’t cover.
What is life insurance?
Life insurance helps to protect your loved ones financially if you die during the policy term.
Life Insurance isn’t usually bought or renewed like other insurance policies. You buy it for the length of time you want to be covered for, say 30 years, and make payments monthly or annually for that entire period of time.
What does life insurance cover?
Life insurance gives you peace of mind that your loved ones will be able to pay a mortgage or other expenses after you die.
Usually you can pick between mortgage protection – which specifically helps to pay off a mortgage, and family protection – where you choose a lump sum amount to leave for your loved ones.
Mortgage protection is what’s known as decreasing cover, meaning the amount it covers goes down over time as you pay off more and more of your mortgage. But the amount you pay monthly for the insurance stays the same.
Family protection is level cover, meaning you’ll always be covered for the amount you choose at the start of your policy, and you’ll pay the same in premiums each month.
Some life insurance policies offer more than financial protection too – for example, with us, you get annual health checks, mental health counselling, grief support, and nutritional support through Aviva DigiCare+. This is a non-contractual benefit, that Aviva can withdraw or amend at any time.
Do you need health insurance?
Even if you have access to the NHS, health insurance can help you feel more in control of when, where, and how you’re treated, and you can tailor your health insurance so it suits you and your family’s needs. It could also give you faster access to the diagnosis, treatment, and aftercare you need.
Do you need life insurance?
If there are people that depend on you financially – for a mortgage or for their standard of living – you might want to think about taking out life insurance. You’re paying to protect your loved ones after you die – it can be unsettling to think about, but it’s important to make sure they don’t have to deal with financial pressures on top of emotional ones.
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