A little sweetener

With a history of more than 100 years, healthcare cash plans have learnt to move with the times, adapting their benefits to suit new demands. This evolution is evident in the figures. Just short of 4.75 million people have cash plans, representing 7.9% of the population, according to Laing & Buisson's Health and Care Cover UK Market Report 2006. "In terms of the numbers, this has been fairly static for the last few years, although spending has been growing fairly strongly," says Philip Blackburn, senior economist at Laing & Buisson and author of the report. For example, while £346m was sp...