They solve opposite problems. A health cash plan reimburses everyday costs you know you’ll have — dental check-ups, eye tests, glasses, physiotherapy — paying you back a percentage up to annual limits. Private medical insurance covers major treatment you hope you’ll never need: surgery, cancer care, specialist consultations and diagnostics at private hospitals. Cash plans handle small, predictable and frequent; PMI handles large, unpredictable and rare. Neither is a substitute for the other.

Cash plans are far cheaper. Individual cover typically runs from around £8.58 a month at entry level to about £40 a month for comprehensive tiers, with most households settling around £13–£20. Private medical insurance typically costs £35–£120+ a month depending on age, postcode, excess and cover level. The gap reflects what you’re buying: a cash plan reimburses a few hundred pounds of routine costs a year, while PMI can pay out tens of thousands for major treatment.

It’s worth it if your annual routine healthcare spending exceeds the premium — and for most people with regular dental and optical appointments, it does. Two dental check-ups, an eye test and a pair of glasses can easily exceed a year’s premium on a mid-tier plan, and people who claim consistently often break even within a few months. The FCA has noted that cash plans offer better claims-to-premium value than most insurance products, which is unusual and worth knowing. The catch is you must actually claim.

No, and this is the most important thing to understand. Cash plans do not cover major operations, cancer treatment or inpatient hospital care. Some include a hospital cash benefit that pays a modest fixed sum per night if you’re admitted, but that’s a small contribution, not treatment funding. If your concern is being able to get major treatment quickly without a large bill, a cash plan will not do that job — you need private medical insurance.

Yes, and the combination works better than most people expect, because the two products barely overlap. PMI covers the major treatment; the cash plan picks up the routine dental, optical and therapy costs that PMI typically excludes. A cash plan can also help with the excess on a PMI claim, and with therapies beyond your policy’s limits. For a couple of hundred pounds a year on top of a policy, it plugs the gaps PMI leaves open by design.

You pay the dentist, optician or therapist yourself, then submit the receipt to your provider — usually through an app or online portal — and they reimburse a percentage of the cost up to your annual limit for that benefit. No GP referral is needed, unlike a PMI claim. Payments are typically made within a few working days. Most plans have an initial waiting period of one to three months before you can claim, so don’t buy one the week before a dental appointment.

By market share, the five largest are Simplyhealth, Westfield Health, Medicash, Health Shield and BHSF Group, with Bupa Cash Plan, Sovereign Health Care, HSF and Benenden Health also active. When comparing, look past the headline price to the benefit table: a £10 plan with a £75 dental limit is usually worse value than a £15 plan with a £200 limit, because the caps determine what you actually get back. Match the limits to what you genuinely spend.