AXA Health's benefits on its Personal Health plan come in three layers: a core every member holds, one of two cancer levels, and a set of options that each open up a separate area, from out-patient consultations and therapies to mental health, dental and optical cashback and hospitals outside AXA's list. Video and phone GP appointments and a round-the-clock health line sit in the core. The layer that moves your premium is the options, so the real decision is which ones to hold; an FCA-authorised broker can get AXA to price the combinations you are weighing if you request a free call-back on this page.
Every benefit described below is taken from AXA's Personal Health membership handbook: October 2024 is printed on the front, print code PB116343a/10.24 on the back. The copy consulted on 4 September 2026 sits on crm.more-health.co.uk, a server belonging to an intermediary rather than to AXA. Terms are revised from time to time, so check every benefit below against the terms sent with your quote. Where AXA's consumer website describes a service more recently, that is used and dated instead. Page references are to the PDF, which runs one ahead of the number printed on each sheet.
What every Personal Health member gets before any option is added
The handbook's quick-start guide opens with this core, the part of the plan that every member holds. For an in-patient or day-patient stay, the private hospital or day-patient unit's fees are paid in full provided the hospital is in AXA's Directory of Hospitals, which takes in accommodation, diagnostic tests, theatre time, nursing, drugs, dressings, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, physiotherapy and surgical appliances your specialist uses during an operation. Surgeons', anaesthetists' and physicians' fees carry no yearly limit (PDF page 3). Surgery done as an out-patient has no yearly limit either, and a CT, MRI or PET scan is met in full at a scanning centre the directory lists, provided a specialist referred you (page 4).
Two things sit outside that core. Consultations and tests as an out-patient belong to an option, set out in the next section. And treatment at a hospital the directory leaves out earns only a flat sum: £50 for each night as an in-patient, or £50 for each day as a day-patient (page 3). For anyone without the Extended Cover Option, the handbook spells out the consequence: "You will need to pay the majority of the cost yourself. This could be a significant amount." (page 19). Which hospitals are listed is covered on the AXA Health hospital list.
AXA health insurance benefits you choose: the option tables
Each option has a table of its own in the handbook (pages 5 to 7), and a separate list on page 8 states what you have no cover for if you do not hold it. Set side by side:
| Option | What its table adds | Without it (page 8) |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Out-Patient Option | Up to three specialist consultations each year, remote ones included; diagnostic tests performed by your specialist or on their referral, and practitioner fees on referral, with no yearly limit (page 5) | No out-patient diagnostic tests or consultations |
| Full Out-Patient Option | Specialist consultations and practitioner fees on referral with no yearly limit, remote consultations included (page 6) | As above |
| Therapies Option | Out-patient fees for physiotherapists, acupuncturists, osteopaths and chiropractors, on the terms quoted below (page 6) | No cover for those four kinds of practitioner |
| Mental Health Option | Psychiatric treatment as an in-patient, day-patient and out-patient (page 6) | No psychiatric treatment at all |
| Dentist and Optician Cashback Option | 80% of dentist's fees up to £400; 80% of prescription glasses and lenses up to £200; a smaller sum towards an eye test; each limit set per year (page 7) | No dentists' or opticians' fees |
| Extended Cover Option | UK hospitals and scanning centres outside the directory, paid in full up to the facility's normal published daily rates; treatment outside the UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man up to the cost of equivalent UK treatment, if AXA agrees the fee before you travel and you claim it back; fee-limited specialists, provided they do not charge significantly more than usual; private GP visits up to £500 each year (page 7) | Only the £50 cash payment above when you use an unlisted hospital |
A travel option, in two levels, also appears, with its terms in a separate European and Worldwide Travel Cover handbook (page 7). Four of these areas have their own pages: AXA mental health cover, dental and optical cashback, AXA's GP services and, for why out-patient limits vary so much between insurers, the out-patient limit explained.
One naming point before you compare a quote with this table. AXA's consumer page for Personal Health (axahealth.co.uk/health-insurance, © 2026, read 21 October 2026) presents it as the AXA Health Plan, built from stand-alone care options for out-patient, in-patient and cancer care, with mental health added to one of them, so a quote may not use the handbook's labels; AXA Health types of policy sorts out which product name is which.
The therapies line deserves reading in full rather than summarised. For physiotherapists, acupuncturists, osteopaths and chiropractors, the table says:
"No yearly limit that can include up to an overall maximum of ten sessions in a year on GP referral or when you have physiotherapist treatment through our muscles, bones and joints service"
— AXA Health, Personal Health membership handbook (October 2024, PB116343a/10.24), Therapies Option table, PDF page 6.
The same cell goes straight on: "Further sessions when your specialist refers you as long as we agree them first". If the number of sessions you could claim matters to you, ask AXA to confirm in writing how that row applies to the plan you are quoted. Other insurers' therapy wording is set out in does health insurance cover therapy.
Each option you add usually puts the premium up, and by how much depends on your age and the rest of your choices. The broker on the call-back can have AXA price the same plan with and without the options you are unsure about, so the cost of each one is a number on a page rather than a guess, and the call is free.
Two phone services: Doctor at Hand and the 24/7 health line
Both come with the core rather than as options, and they do different jobs. The core table gives unlimited video or phone consultations through AXA Doctor at Hand, though not where a child under 18 is the sole member of the plan, and says the excess is not taken off it and the no claims discount is unaffected (page 4). The handbook adds that you can use it "for any medical condition or concern, whether or not this would be covered under the other benefits of your plan". The service can also refer you on for private specialist treatment, and if its doctor says you need treatment you must call AXA to check it is covered (page 10).
AXA's 2026 consumer page for Personal Health, cited above, now calls it an online GP service, offering video or phone appointments with either a GP or an Advanced Clinical Practitioner, and says "GPs are available 24 hours a day and Advanced Clinical Practitioners are available from 8am-10pm (subject to appointment availability)". Registration and how the service handles referrals are on AXA Health's GP page.
The health line is a separate number, 0800 003 004, which the handbook gives as open 24 hours a day every day, staffed by nurses, counsellors, midwives and pharmacists, with the midwife and pharmacist services on shorter hours (page 8). These professionals "do not diagnose or prescribe, and are not designed to replace your GP", and what you tell them is kept confidential from AXA's claims department. Dedicated cancer and heart nurses take calls on their own numbers on weekdays, 9am to 5pm, with the main line covering other hours (page 9). The 2026 consumer page lists a "24/7 health support line with nurses, and 24/7 mental health support line with counsellors, available to answer your questions".
Cancer benefits: what changes with Comprehensive Cancer Cover
Personal Health has two cancer levels, Comprehensive Cancer Cover and NHS Cancer Support, and your membership certificate says which you hold (pages 5 and 21); AXA Health types of policy looks at that choice as a pricing decision. On this page the question is what each level actually pays out.
Under Comprehensive Cancer Cover the handbook's promise is broad: "We will cover treatment for any new cancer that starts after you join. We will also cover that cancer if it comes back and you are still a member." (page 21). If your past medical history has given you exclusions to do with cancer, that cancer is not covered if it returns. In the format the Association of British Insurers recommends, no time limit applies and no specific money limit either, with the same rules as for any other treatment (page 24).
Around the treatment itself, Comprehensive Cancer Cover carries further benefits (pages 21 to 25):
- a nurse from a supplier AXA contracts with can give drug treatment at home, under a specialist's supervision and once AXA has agreed it;
- day-patient or out-patient radiotherapy or chemotherapy on the NHS earns a cash payment of £50 a day, up to £2,000 a year, where the plan would have covered that treatment;
- a six-month course each year with an AXA Health Coach through an app, during treatment or within two years of your last surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, where the plan would have covered the treatment;
- wigs or other temporary head coverings needed during treatment to kill cancer cells, up to £400 each year;
- a charitable donation of £100 for each night of free care in a hospice, or £100 for each day of free hospice-at-home care, paid direct to the registered hospice charity.
The same table marks routine monitoring a GP surgery could carry out, and follow-up procedures that check for cancer rather than treat it, as not covered.
NHS Cancer Support is a different thing altogether: "If you have NHS Cancer Support we will not pay for the treatment of cancer. You will need to use the NHS, or pay for the costs of treatment yourself." (page 25). What it does pay for is a licensed cancer drug the NHS will not fund, and having it given to you, if a specialist recommends and prescribes it, it is used within its licence, AXA agrees it in advance, and it is meant to shrink, stabilise or slow the cancer rather than only relieve symptoms. Other insurers' cancer terms are compared in cancer cover across insurers.
Cash payments, children's extras and smaller benefits
Several core benefits are fixed sums or narrow extras rather than treatment paid in full, and each has its own trigger.
- Free NHS in-patient treatment: "£50 a night up to £2,000 a year", when you are admitted before midnight and AXA would have covered the treatment privately; treatment in an NHS intensive care unit counts too, whether or not it follows private treatment (page 4).
- A hotel for one supporter: "Up to £100 a night up to £500 a year" towards one close relative or friend staying near the private hospital, where the member is having covered treatment and the stay is to support them (page 3).
- Ambulance: a road ambulance paid in full when it is medically necessary to move you to another medical facility during private in-patient or day-patient treatment (page 4).
- Antibiotics by drip at home: a nurse paid in full, provided AXA agreed it beforehand, you would otherwise be admitted, the nurse works under a fee-approved specialist, and the supplier is one AXA contracts with (page 4).
- Oral surgery: paid in full on your dentist's referral, for example to remove impacted teeth, at a facility with an AXA agreement for it (page 5).
For children aged 14 and under, the core adds one parent's hospital accommodation paid in full, one pinnaplasty operation for prominent ears, laser treatment of a port-wine stain on the face if AXA agrees it before treatment starts, and up to six sessions a year of speech therapy needed because of developmental delay (page 5). AXA Health insurance for children goes through each of these in more detail.
The prosthesis entry in the core table reads:
"External prosthesis Up to £5,000 for the lifetime of your membership. We will pay this benefit towards the cost of providing an external prosthesis. If you have an excess, we will not take this off this cash payment. Also, it will not affect any no claims discount you have."
— AXA Health, Personal Health membership handbook (October 2024, PB116343a/10.24), core cover table, PDF page 5.
The fuller prosthesis rule later in the handbook adds that you must have had continuous cover with AXA before the accident or surgery that led to it, and that all claims must be made within 12 months of the amputation or removal (page 26). The hotel and NHS cash entries carry the same two promises about the excess and the discount; for where an excess does come off a claim, see the AXA excess page.
AXA health gym benefits, member offers and the "Max" question
AXA runs its gym discounts alongside the insurance rather than as a benefit of it. Its gym offers page (axahealth.co.uk/fitness-offers, © 2026, read 21 October 2026) lists discounted Nuffield Health memberships and a discounted Hussle multi-gym pass for people covered on an AXA Health private healthcare plan, with partner rates and age and minimum-term conditions, and states: "Offers do not form part of insured benefits and are subject to change." AXA Health gym discounts looks at how to weigh a perk like this against the cover.
People also search for AXA health Max benefits. If a quote, advert or comparison site has shown you an AXA plan or tier called Max, raise it on the free call-back, where the broker can explain what the name covers and what sits under it.
To set AXA's benefit tables beside other insurers' wording, what private health insurance includes does that, and what AXA Health costs deals with price.
AXA membership benefits: what members and buyers ask
Can I add an option after I have joined?
The handbook says you can usually add cover within 14 days of receiving your documents or when you renew, by calling AXA (page 8).
How do I check which options and cancer level I have?
Look at your membership certificate, which is part of your membership guide: the handbook says it shows which options you hold (page 8) and which level of cancer cover applies (page 21).
What does the quick-start guide list as not covered?
Treatment of conditions you had, or had symptoms of, before joining; ongoing, recurrent and long-term (chronic) conditions; cancer treatment, apart from what the handbook's cancer section allows, unless you hold Comprehensive Cancer Cover; and pregnancy and childbirth (pages 7 and 8). Each points to a fuller rule later on, and AXA and pre-existing conditions takes the first in detail.
Can I see AXA's benefits priced against other insurers' before I buy?
Yes, and it is worth doing with the option table above in hand, because the benefits you would actually use are the ones to price. Enter your name and number in the request on this page and a broker will ring you at no charge, ready to price AXA next to the other insurers it deals with.