Individually small, collectively the part of the policy most people never claim — largely because nobody tells them it is there.

What the policy documents actually say

The Exeter bundles private ambulance, home nursing, parental accommodation, hospice donation and an NHS cash benefit as additional benefits alongside a no-claims discount. Aviva's equivalents come with numbers attached: home nursing in full immediately after covered in-patient or day-patient treatment, private ambulance in full, parent accommodation in full where the child is 15 or under and for one parent only, and a hospice donation of £70 a day up to 10 days.

AXA Health pays its hospice donation at £100 a night, directly to the registered hospice providing end-of-life care, including hospice-at-home. Bupa treats home nursing and private ambulance as separately numbered benefits with their own conditions — its ambulance cover applies where travel is medically necessary from home, work, an airport or a seaport to a recognised facility.

None of these will change which policy you buy. What they change is what you claim when something serious happens, and they are consistently forgotten at exactly that moment.

The parent accommodation limit is the one to check if you have children. Fifteen or under, one parent only, is a narrower definition than most people assume when they buy family cover.

Read this section once when the policy arrives rather than when you need it. It takes ten minutes and it is the part of the document nobody opens.

Questions to put to the insurer or broker

  • Which additional benefits does my policy actually include?
  • What are the age limits on parent accommodation?
  • Is the hospice donation per night or per day?

Related questions

Sources

  • Source: Aviva — Healthier Solutions Terms and conditions (2025-04), read 4 September 2026.
  • Source: AXA Health — Personal Health membership handbook, October 2024, read 4 September 2026.
  • Source: Bupa policy guide — Bupa By You health insurance (BINS 14718) (2024), read 4 September 2026.
  • Source: The Exeter — Private Medical Insurance — Insurance Product Information Document (Health+) (2025-10), read 4 September 2026.

The limit behind every answer here

None of this reaches a condition you already have. Cover is written for problems that arise after it starts, so anything you have symptoms of when you apply is excluded — permanently under full medical underwriting, or until a symptom-free period has passed under a moratorium. Chronic conditions are excluded by every insurer whose wording we hold. Figures quoted come from current policy documents and change at renewal, so check the document you are actually offered.

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