Cash in on your New Year’s resolution for a healthier lifestyle

Getting fit, quitting smoking and eating healthily are three of the most common New Year resolutions we often pledge to follow.

But it’s easy to fall into the trap of shelling out lots of cash on new gadgets to help kick-start your new regime and then losing motivation a couple of weeks into the month.

Luckily PruHealth, the innovative private medical insurer, can help you achieve all three promises with its discounted gym memberships and other healthy discount offers.

PruHealth’s Five Step Plan to Healthy Savings

1. Lose lbs but not £’s

PruHealth has linked up with top gyms - Cannons, LA Fitness and Virgin Active to offer discounted gym memberships for its health insurance policyholders who go to the gym regularly The concept is simple: the more you to go the gym, the less you pay for your membership.

And, if you go twice a week or more on average over a three month period – depending on which gym you go to - you could soon be paying nothing at all. Now you could even get PMI- and be a gym member for a similar price to the retail cost of a gym membership alone. If you have always wanted health insurance and have also always wanted to join the gym, but thought both were too expensive, this offer could provide the solution.

PruHealth members pay an activation fee (£25) and a standard, subsidised fee for the first 3 months Then, depending on the frequency of your gym visits and the particular gym partner you are a member of, your next 3 months could start from £0 for standard LA Fitness and Cannons memberships, and typically from £5 to £15 for Virgin Active.

So if you’re looking to unveil a ‘New You’ in 2008, but don’t want to start a fitness regime that breaks the bank, take advantage of PruHealth’s great deals.

2. Get Active

For fans of other forms of exercise, PruHealth has recently teamed up with eBay to offer policyholders a way to earn Vitality points to help towards reductions on their health insurance premiums if they don’t claim by buying eligible fitness-related goods from the sports category on ebay.co.uk. For every purchase over £5 or more you get 40 Vitality points, up to a limit of 120 per year for an individual membership and 240 per year for family membership. Alternatively, buy a ‘Fitbug’ pedometer at a heavily discounted rate to earn Vitality points for walking the recommended 10,000 steps a day to keep fit.

3. Get support to stop smoking

Quitting smoking can not only improve your physical health but non-smoker status can also improve the health of your bank balance, with a 20-a-day habit costing as much as £1,825 a year. Smokers who sign-up to PruHealth can take advantage of attending the ‘Allen Carr’s EasyWay to Stop Smoking Programme’ for just £49, rather than the £220 retail price.Upon attendance, members will be required to pay an additional £100 administration cost. This will then be fully reimbursed by PruHealth. In addition to the opportunity to attend the clinic for an excellent price, members are also awarded 150 Vitality points for completion of the course.

4. Start the year with a discounted health screening

If you want to start 2008 with a confirmed clean bill of health, PruHealth offer policyholders the opportunity to go for a health assessment session with one of its health partners (Nuffield Proactive Health, the Diagnostic Clinic, Roadtohealth). These sessions will give people the chance to review their current health status and plan for their future continued wellbeing.

5. Earn Vitality points by eating more fruit and veg

Perhaps you need help sticking to your New Year resolution of eating your five pieces of fruit and veg a day? Healthy meal planners are available to download from the PruHealth website and you can also earn PruHealth Vitality Points when buying fresh fruit and vegetables from the fruit and vegetable aisle at Sainsbury’s.

PruHealth’s Chief Executive Officer, Shaun Matisonn, said: “The majority of Britons start the New Year full of good intentions to revamp their lifestyle and get fit, but many find it difficult to maintain the momentum. Our philosophy is to reward our members for staying healthy - that extra financial incentive to get fit can give members the added boost they need to make regular visits to the gym and stay in shape throughout the year.

“PruHealth’s Vitality reward system enables members to earn points for looking after their health, for example by going to the gym, eating healthily or having a fitness assessment. These points, along with limiting the number of claims they make, allows them 25, 50, 75 or even 100% of the current years premium off their renewal premium if they do not claim and depending on their vitality status towards the cost of their renewal.”

PruHealth Vitality Points

The more Vitality points you earn, the greater Vitality status you can achieve from Bronze right through to Platinum. If you don’t claim you could earn a no claims bonus of 25% which can be increased to 50%, 75% and with a sustained effort throughout the year even 100% of this years premium towards the cost of next years renewal.