Cheap health insurance for mental health is a search with a catch. On the wordings we hold, mental health is the part of a policy most often sold as an optional extra; it is capped in days, pounds or sessions when it is there; and, like everything else a policy covers, it sits under the exclusion for conditions that need care without an end. A low quote for a policy with mental health cover can be a quote for one without it.
The decision is which of those pieces to have and what each does to the price, and that is a quote for your own age, postcode and choices, not a figure anyone can print. An FCA-authorised broker can set several insurers' mental health options side by side in one conversation; fill in the form on this page to be put in touch with one. It is free and takes a few minutes.
What follows is what seven insurers' documents say, quoted with the page, so that a price can be read for what it buys. If you would rather talk to someone now than read about insurance, Samaritans are on 116 123, free, at any hour.
What this page answers
What named insurers' wordings say about mental health, with the document, date and page, so each line can be checked. Not the price: we hold no premium data, so "cheapest mental health insurance" is not a ranking this page can make, and a ranking made without quoting you is a guess. What can be said is where the price moves: whether mental health is in the core policy or bought as an extra, which out-patient level is chosen where there is a choice, the excess, and whether the policy would pay for the care in question at all. That last one is the point, because affordable health insurance that covers mental health is only affordable if it covers it.
Two limits. Each quotation is one clause from a long document, so a limit or condition not quoted here may still exist; the complete answer is the policy document and your certificate. And nothing here is about whether anyone needs treatment or what kind; it is about what a policy pays for once a specialist has recommended something. Searches say "coverage", the documents say "cover", and they mean the same thing.
Standard cover or an add-on: what each wording says
Seven insurers' documents sit behind this page. Four describe mental health as something chosen rather than included; one includes it; for Aviva the clause we hold is a benefit-table line that does not say either way; and Bupa's clause is about something else, covered under referral below.
AXA Health's handbook makes the whole benefit conditional on an option:
"If you have the Mental Health Option, we will pay for in-patient or day-patient psychiatric treatment, including specialist fees, as shown in the Mental Health Option table."
— AXA Health, Personal Health membership handbook (October 2024), page 18, read 4 September 2026.
The Exeter's Health+ summary lists it under "Benefit add-ons (optional) ... Mental health" (The Exeter, Health+ Insurance Product Information Document, October 2025, page 1, read 4 September 2026). WPA's Complete Health summary heads its clause "Mental Health Treatment Optional Extra" (WPA, Complete Health Insurance Product Information Document, November 2025, page 1, read 4 September 2026), quoted whole in the limits section. Freedom's guide says it most plainly, and its last sentence is the one to remember:
"Freedom Elite offers a range of optional additional benefits. These are: outpatient treatment; alternative therapies; mental health care; and dental, optical and private GP fees. If you are covered for any of these additional benefits, they will be shown on the certificate. If an additional benefit is not shown on the certificate, you do not have that cover even though it is mentioned in this guide."
— Freedom Health Insurance, Freedom Elite Policyholder's Guide to Cover (April 2025), page 10, read 4 September 2026.
A guide describing mental health cover is not the same as having it; the certificate is. Saga's HealthPlan Super includes it rather than selling it as an add-on, with in-patient days and out-patient money listed among the policy's benefits, quoted below. Aviva's Healthier Solutions table lists an out-patient mental health line with a cap, and the clause does not say whether that line is standard or chosen, so that is a question for Aviva.
When a quote comes in low, then, the first question is whether mental health is on it at all, and at what level. A broker can put that line from each insurer's quote in front of you before anything is signed.
Acute or chronic: the line that decides whether ongoing care is paid for
This is the part of the wording most readers do not know exists, and it matters more for mental health than for most of what a policy covers. The product is built around acute conditions, the kind treatment is expected to put right. The wordings define the other kind, chronic, and exclude it, and the exclusion is not specific to mental health: it sits in the general conditions and runs across the whole policy. Aviva's is the fullest of the three we hold:
"The policy does not cover chronic conditions. A chronic condition is defined as a disease, illness or injury that has one or more of the following characteristics: it needs ongoing or long-term monitoring through consultations, examinations, check-ups and/or tests"
— Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue), page 3, read 4 September 2026.
That is the first characteristic in a list that runs on. Bupa's guide says "Treatment of chronic conditions isn't covered" (Bupa, Bupa By You policy guide, BINS 14718, 2024, page 28, read 4 September 2026), and Freedom's defines them as the "long-term management or maintenance of incurable, prolonged or lifelong conditions" (Freedom Health Insurance, Freedom Elite Policyholder's Guide to Cover, April 2025, page 8, read 4 September 2026). None of the mental health clauses we hold says mental health is treated differently, and we have found no clause from any insurer saying how the test is applied to a mental health condition in particular.
What the test turns on is the shape of the treatment, not the name of a condition. The benefit tables below describe things that finish: in-patient treatment counted in days, counselling in sessions, out-patient treatment in pounds a year. Monitoring and management expected to continue are what the chronic definition describes, and the insurer decides, against this wording and at the time of the claim, which description fits. It is the one question worth putting to the insurer or broker in writing before you buy: if this treatment continued beyond a first course, what in the wording decides whether it goes on being paid for?
What the cover is worth when it is there: days, pounds and sessions
Where a wording we hold gives a figure, this is it. These are benefit limits, what the insurer will pay, not what the policy costs.
| Insurer and policy | In-patient and day-patient | Out-patient | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aviva, Healthier Solutions | Not in the clause we hold | "Up to £2,000", "On GP referral to a psychiatric therapist or psychiatric specialist" | Terms and conditions, April 2025 issue, page 6 |
| AXA Health, Personal Health with the Mental Health Option | "as shown in the Mental Health Option table"; we do not hold the table | Not in the clause we hold | Membership handbook, October 2024, page 18 |
| Saga, HealthPlan Super | "up to 28 days a year" | "up to £2,500 of benefits a year" | Policy book, May 2025, page 4 |
| WPA, Complete Health with the Mental Health Treatment Optional Extra | "Up to 28 days/nights" | "Choose: £1,000 or £2,500", plus structured counselling "Up to 20 sessions" | Insurance Product Information Document, November 2025, page 1 |
All read 4 September 2026. Aviva's cap is per policy year. For The Exeter, Bupa and Freedom we hold no mental health limit, which is not the same as there being none.
WPA's clause is worth reading whole, because it shows how the choices stack:
"Mental Health Treatment Optional Extra In-patient and Day-patient Treatment Up to 28 days/nights. If you add this benefit you must also choose a level of Mental Health Out-patient Treatment and Therapy. Out-patient Treatment and Therapy Choose: £1,000 or £2,500. Structured Counselling (Extended Therapy) Up to 20 sessions"
— WPA, Complete Health Insurance Product Information Document (November 2025), page 1, read 4 September 2026.
So two wordings arrive at 28 days; Saga's out-patient figure is fixed where WPA's is a choice, and that choice is one of the things a quote is built from. Keep the mental health line separate from the general out-patient line: on WPA's summary, "Consultations with a Specialist – £250 (increase with the Extra Out-patient Consultations Optional Extra)" is a different row from the mental health one (same document, page 1), and which row a given appointment is paid from is a question for WPA. Both WPA's and The Exeter's are summary documents; the full policy wording may hold limits the summary does not.
On any quote, these are the lines to find: in-patient days, out-patient pounds, sessions, and the row that says whether the whole benefit is an option. Where a line is blank, ask rather than assume.
Getting in: GP referral or a direct call
Aviva's out-patient mental health line is paid "On GP referral to a psychiatric therapist or psychiatric specialist" (Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions, April 2025 issue, page 6, read 4 September 2026), so the route starts at the GP and runs to a named kind of practitioner. Bupa's guide offers a different door:
"If it's about: Cancer, Muscles, bones and joints, Mental health use our Direct Access service. This means you can call us about your symptoms without needing a referral from a GP."
— Bupa, Bupa By You policy guide (BINS 14718, 2024), page 6, read 4 September 2026.
Read that for what it is: a clause about how you contact the insurer, not about what is paid once you have. The same guide adds that the first assessment does not touch your money: "If you have a Direct Access phone or video assessment you won't need to pay an excess for it and the cost won't be subtracted from your outpatient benefit allowance (if either of these apply to your policy)." (Bupa, Bupa By You policy guide, BINS 14718, 2024, page 7, read 4 September 2026.) What Bupa pays for mental health treatment after that, and up to what limit, is not in the clauses we hold. The other five insurers are absent here because we have not pulled a referral clause from them, which is not the same as their not having one.
What makes the same cover cheaper: the excess, co-payment and the lower out-patient tiers
With no premium data, what this page can say about price is which dials move it, and the wordings name three. The first is the excess, what you pay before the insurer does. Aviva lists six levels: "Excess options £100 Benefits covered under this policy will be subject to an excess payable for each member every policy year. £200 £500 £1,000 £3,000 £5,000" (Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions, April 2025 issue, page 11, read 4 September 2026). That is for each member, every policy year, and Bupa's guide shows what the yearly part means: after a £100 excess on a £250 physiotherapy bill, "If Helen needs other treatment during the policy year, she doesn't need to pay another excess." (Bupa, Bupa By You policy guide, BINS 14718, 2024, page 10, read 4 September 2026.) Freedom explains the mechanics, which matter when the first bills are for a course of sessions: "we will deduct this amount from the first valid invoice we receive and from any subsequent valid invoices until the excess has been fully applied. We will tell you when we have done this and you will then need to pay the excess amount to the relevant provider." (Freedom Health Insurance, Freedom Elite Policyholder's Guide to Cover, April 2025, page 31, read 4 September 2026.)
The second is a co-payment, which among the documents we hold only WPA offers: "Where Shared Responsibility (co-payment) has been selected, you must pay 25% of claims for eligible treatment up to your chosen level of Shared Responsibility." (WPA, Complete Health Insurance Product Information Document, November 2025, page 2, read 4 September 2026.) A quarter of every eligible bill up to a ceiling you chose, rather than a fixed sum once.
The third is the out-patient level, and it is the one to read most carefully, because a lower tier can remove things not obviously connected to it. Aviva's wording:
"If you have chosen a reduced out-patient limit of £500 or £1,000 you are not covered as an in-patient, day-patient, or out-patient for treatment for: complications of pregnancy and childbirth, or surgical procedures on the teeth performed in a hospital"
— Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue), page 8, read 4 September 2026.
Whether a reduced general out-patient limit touches Aviva's separate mental health line is not something that clause says; it is here because it shows the pattern. A lower tier is one of the levers that bring a quote down, and what it takes with it is written somewhere else in the document. For mental health, already an option on four of these wordings and a chosen level on one, the question is always what the lower figure has taken out.
That is the next step: not a cheaper policy, but a quote in which the mental health line, its limits, the excess and the chronic wording have each been read before the price is. Fill in the form on this page and an FCA-authorised broker will put several insurers' versions of that in front of you.