fatvegan

Lifetime Cover is like a huge exit fee for private health insurance. Every year you're in private health insurance you build up an asset, which is the saving of future health care insurance costs. If you leave, you lose that asset (unless you go back to some other insurer within a year I think). Private health insurers will be able to increase prices until they capture the value of that asset. Since people won't respond to price increases (by leaving) unless the cost of those price increases is higher than the value of the asset they've built up. So you're free to switch amongst providers, but not really free to leave. Which doesn't make for a very competitive industry and might explain why public health insurers seem to keep costs down better than private ones. Although I'm not sure if that's true generally.