You need to get a clear understanding of what this term means if you are to get the best value-for-money health insurance. The deductible is the amount you have to pay out of your own pocket each year before your policy will pay out any money against a claim. So if you have a deductible of, say, $1,000 on hospital treatment, that is the amount you have to pay before you are entitled to claim. Once you claim, you are only entitled to recover the amount paid over $1,000.

You need to look very carefully about what is included in the policy and what each deductible covers. You may find that there are different deductibles for different types of treatment — some, such as preventative treatments, may not be covered at all in the policy.

Be very careful about the wording, particularly if the policy offers a deductible per event rather than per year. This works to your advantage if, say, you are diagnosed with diabetes. Once you have paid the deductible, you are covered for all future costs relating to the diabetes. But if you are diagnosed with diabetes, hypertension and depression in the same year, you will have to find three deductible payments before you can trigger a claim for each “event”.