As anticipated in my last post, Bupa has today announced that it will be reinstating cover for 34 BMI hospitals with immediate effect.

The three hospitals that will remain out of Bupa’s network are the BMI Gisburne Park Hospital, BMI Lancaster Hospital and BMI Castle Consulting Suite.

Today’s Telegraph is carrying an article by Ian Cowie about Bupa removing cover for 37 BMI hospitals from 1 January. This development has understandably caused concern for Bupa policyholders who use, or would want to use, their local BMI hospital. The insurer has stressed, though, that it will continue to cover the de-listed hospitals where patients are in the middle of treatment.

Bupa has come under fire for this strategy but has countered that, if it does not take steps to control costs, already high premiums will eventually become unsustainable. The insurer has said that BMI had requested prices that were ‘over 20 per cent more expensive than at least one other hospital group, despite in our view offering no better quality of service.’

Whatever the merits of this argument, it is disappointing that Bupa’s members and BMI’s patients have been dragged into what has become a very public spat. Negotiations are apparently ongoing and given that the current impasse benefits neither Bupa nor BMI, there is a good chance that the situation will eventually be resolved. Affected Bupa members may therefore wish to wait and see how the situation develops before taking any action.

Choice is a key driver for consumers to take out private medical insurance, so it is a risky strategy for Bupa to de-list the hospitals completely rather than charge an additional premium to cover them. Rival insurers have made hay on the issue of choice, but hospital coverage is only one aspect of a policy’s suitability and may be less important than securing ongoing cover for pre-existing conditions.

At the end of his article, Mr Cowie suggests that this development vindicates cynics who claim that ‘medical insurers of all descriptions are in business to lend out umbrellas - until it starts to rain’. Having assisted hundreds of clients with their claims over the years, this is certainly not my experience of private medical insurers—and especially not of Bupa.

The 37 hospitals are as follows:

BMI Alexandra Hospital

BMI Bath Clinic

BMI Beaumont Hospital

BMI Bishops Wood Hospital

BMI Castle Consulting Centre

BMI Clementine Churchill Hospital 

BMI Coombe Wing

BMI Droitwich Spa Hospital

BMI Duchy Hospital

BMI Edgbaston Hospital

BMI Esperance Hospital

BMI Fawkham Manor Hospital

BMI Foscote Hospital

BMI Gisburne Park Hospital

BMI Goring Hall Hospital

BMI Hampshire Clinic

BMI Harbour Hospital

BMI Highfield Hospital

BMI Huddersfield Hospital

BMI Lancaster Hospital

BMI Manor Hospital

BMI McIndoe Surgical Centre

BMI Meriden Hospital

BMI Mount Alvernia Hospital

BMI Oxford Clinic

BMI Paddocks Clinic

BMI Priory Hospital

BMI Princess Margaret Hospital

BMI Runnymede Hospital

BMI Sarum Road Hospital

BMI Sefton Hospital

BMI Shelburne Hospital

BMI Shirley Oaks Hospital

BMI Somerfield Hospital

BMI South Cheshire Private Hospital

BMI Syon Clinic

BMI Woodlands Hospital

Last week, Bupa announced that it would no longer sell plans that imposed limits on cancer treatment. This headline caused some consternation among Bupa policyholders, many of whom were told when they took out their plans that Bupa provided industry-leading cancer cover without financial or time limits on treatment.

To clarify, the limits that have now been removed only applied to corporate plans, not SME or individual policies. The key point that seems to have been missed in most of the reporting on this story is that the benefit limits applied to all treatment, not just treatment for cancer (props to Health Insurance magazine for noting this).

In December 2009, Bupa introduced an option whereby corporates could control cost by specifying an annual limit for their employees, typically £25k or £50k. The insurer soon found, though, that these limits were often insufficient for members being treated for cancer, which was at odds with Bupa’s long-standing ethos of covering cancer in full at every stage of the illness.

Effectively, Bupa has taken the decision that it would rather not compromise its principles on cancer care for the sake of competing in a cost-conscious area of the market. Cancer is an emotive topic and insurers can tarnish their reputations by withdrawing cover for cancer at a critical stage of the illness, even where contractual limitations have been pre-agreed.

This development re-unifies Bupa’s cancer offering and marks the provider out as the only insurer to offer full cover for cancer (including palliative care) across its entire product range. This says much about Bupa’s philosophy and would, with better PR, have made for a powerful marketing message. Instead, it appeared as though the market leader was playing catch-up with its competitors.