If you are a UK resident you are entitled to free healthcare from the NHS. But if you’d like more of a choice in the level of care you get, it’s probably worth your while looking into private medical insurance.

As with many kinds of insurance, you can choose different levels of cover when buying private medical insurance. A basic private medical insurance should pick up the costs of most in-patient treatments and day-care surgery, and some extend to out-patient treatments like consultants and specialists.

Cover can be purchased on a moratorium basis, which means you won’t need to answer any questions about your health, but if you have suffered from any health conditions in the last five years, they will initially be excluded from cover. You can also apply for cover on a full medical underwriting basis, which means you will need to answer a number of questions about your wellbeing and, based on the information you provide, the insurer will decide the conditions of your cover.

Unfortunately you can’t take out cover for treatment you already know you're going to need.

If you’ve had health problems in the past, your insurer could also exclude those conditions from your cover. These are known as pre-existing conditions, and if asked to disclose them when applying for the insurance you must do so, or you could invalidate your policy, meaning the insurance company won't pay out if you make a claim.

Private medical insurance does not normally cover the treatment of chronic medical conditions. A broad definition of a chronic medial condition is a health problem which is likely to continue to need regular or periodic treatment. Some policies exclude certain types of treatments such as out-patient treatments, routine treatments, dental care or experimental treatments.

Many insurers also exclude routine pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, fertility treatment, mental or psychiatric conditions, and elective treatments you may choose to have, such as cosmetic surgery.