A survey of 1,000 UK adults commissioned by CS Healthcare has found that nearly 40% - equivalent to 19 million adults - worry about their health every day, with a further 30% worrying at least once a week. When asked about the severity of their concern, over a third of adults said they were in a "mild" or "constant" state of anxiety about their health, while nearly 600,000 adults are so worried about being unwell that they could not sleep at night.
When asked what caused them most anxiety about being unwell, unsurprisingly just under a third stated death, with pain second while concern over waiting times (should they fall ill), came a close third with 18% of respondents. 4.6% (equivalent to over 2.2m adults) said that potential cost for treatment caused them greatest concern, while a similar amount cited hospital cleanliness. Interestingly, twice as many men worried about cost rather than cleanliness (6.2% for the former and 2.8% for the latter) while for women this was reversed (3% worried about cost while 6.2% worried about cleanliness).
David Royle, Chief Executive of CS Healthcare said "The UK public is sometimes presented as being unconcerned about their health, which is clearly not the case at all. Although it is not unexpected for people to be worried about pain or death, it is disappointing that issues like waiting times, cleanliness and cost are causing concern."
One in six adults has Private Medical Insurance (PMI). Of those that have PMI, over 70% said they would think twice about claiming if it meant they would lose their No Claims Discount (NCD) - demonstrating that having a NCD may actually deter consumers from seeking treatment.
David Royle continued: "Many people turn to private medical insurance for peace of mind, knowing that they will have access to the best clinicians, quickly and that costs will be met by the provider. To then not claim for fear of losing a no claims discount doesn’t make sense and runs counter to the very reason people take out health insurance in the first place. We are fundamentally opposed to no claims discounts and do not offer them on any of our products. We are here to provide peace of mind and the very best care and service to our customers if and when they need it."
The CS Healthcare survey also questioned which illnesses people worried most about. More than half of all respondents said cancer was their greatest fear. The second most feared condition was heart attack amongst over 15% of respondents, although this was much higher amongst men (21.6% versus 9.5% of female respondents) and those between 35 and 44 (19%). Interestingly, twice the number of respondents between 18 and 34 most feared diabetes (over 6%) than those over 35. While only 1.4% of the overall population fear STIs, this increases to 4% for the 25-34 age bracket.
Asked specifically about the perceived cost of basic individual PMI, the average response was £44.80 per month. This compares with £12.01 which is the starting price for PMI from CS Healthcare.