Buying a Vitality plan means settling how your medical history will be treated, and the choice most buyers have in mind is between two routes the industry commonly offers: a moratorium, or full medical underwriting. This page is about that choice at Vitality. It sets out what Vitality's own wording says a moratorium does, explains why whether the other route is open on your plan is a question to settle before you buy, and ends with what to ask before choosing. A broker can put your history, with its dates, to the insurers it deals with and tell you whether Vitality is one of them, so if you would rather have an answer built on your own circumstances than read about the general position, the form on this page asks one FCA-authorised broker to get in touch with you.
Which Vitality terms apply to your underwriting choice?
Every Vitality clause on this page comes from a single document: Vitality's Membership Guide (Your Personal Healthcare plan terms and conditions), August 2024 issue. It was read on 10 October 2026, in a copy hosted by a broker rather than by Vitality. It is an older issue, and a policy is governed by the guide you are issued, so check each clause below against the version that comes with your quote, or have the broker set the two side by side on the call-back.
Questions about Vitality's underwriting terms, options and limits mostly come down to one thing: what will be left out of my cover, and can that change? Two clauses from the guide bear on that, and both read as being about the moratorium. How the moratorium bears on the price you are shown is covered in getting a Vitality quote, and how the same wording reads to someone arriving from another insurer is covered in switching provider. This page takes the narrower question of which route to pick.
What the moratorium does, in Vitality's words
The look-back
"Will I be able to claim for this condition, as I have not sought medical advice or taken any prescribed medication for it? The moratorium excludes all conditions that you were aware of during the five years before your cover began, even if you have not needed to see a GP about them or taken prescribed medicine"
— Vitality, Membership Guide (Your Personal Healthcare plan terms and conditions), August 2024, page 48. Read 10 October 2026; the copy is broker-hosted, not from Vitality's own site.
Three things stand out. The period is five years, measured back from the day cover began. The test is awareness, not a medical record: the clause says the exclusion applies even with no GP visit and no prescription. And the word is "all": the clause reads as a rule applied to whatever you were aware of, with no mention of anyone assessing your history first. The practical consequence is that something you never took to a doctor can still fall inside it, provided you knew about it.
The way back in
"We will cover them if you have not received any treatment, advice or medication for that condition for a continuous period of two years after taking out your plan • Pre-existing medical conditions that we permanently exclude from your cover"
— Vitality, the same guide, page 30. Read 10 October 2026; broker-hosted copy.
This is the clause usually read as a moratorium's way out, and it deserves a slower read than it usually gets. It sets a continuous two years with no treatment, advice or medication, and it counts them "after taking out your plan". It then runs into a bullet about conditions Vitality permanently excludes, without naming them.
Two things in it are less settled than they look. The sentence begins "We will cover them", and read alongside page 48 "them" looks like the moratorium's conditions, but on these words alone it could also be a rule for pre-existing conditions generally, so read the whole passage in the guide you are issued. And how Vitality decides that a period was "continuous", or whether a routine appointment, a repeat prescription or a check-up counts as treatment or advice and restarts the count, depends on definitions in the full guide. Those definitions decide whether the two years are easy or hard to achieve in practice, and a broker can talk you through them at no charge when they call.
Full medical underwriting at Vitality: is it an option?
Whether Vitality offers full medical underwriting on this plan, how an application would be assessed and in what form exclusions would be told to you all depend on the plan and the terms current when you buy, so do not assume either route is open, or which one is cheaper, until a quote says so. If you have been told Vitality offers it, that may well be right; the broker can confirm which routes come with your quote when they ring you back.
For context only, and not as Vitality's position: another insurer's handbook, AXA Health's, lists four underwriting routes on one personal product, full medical underwriting and moratorium among them (AXA Health, Personal Health membership handbook, October 2024, page 14, in a copy hosted by an intermediary, read 4 September 2026). It shows that an insurer can sell several routes side by side. It says nothing about Vitality. How the routes differ across insurers is the subject of our guide to private health insurance underwriting, and Bupa's routes have a page of their own.
How to choose between the two
Which route suits you depends on your history and on what Vitality offers on your plan. What can be said is the shape of the decision, in general terms and not as a Vitality term. Under a moratorium you are not asked to set out your history first, so what is excluded may only be tested when you make a claim. Under full medical underwriting you declare your history first and the insurer tells you what it will exclude before cover starts, so you know before paying. The longer version of that contrast, with how different insurers word it, is in the best options with a pre-existing condition.
Set against Vitality's page 48 and page 30 wording, that leaves a few honest tests.
- How clear is your last five years? If you can say with confidence that nothing you were aware of, with or without a doctor, falls in that window, the moratorium's look-back has less to catch. If you are unsure, remember the clause turns on awareness, and the uncertainty lands on you at claim time.
- Is there something you already expect to need treatment for? Then the five-year rule and the two-year wait are the part of the wording that matters, and you may want an answer in writing before you buy. Whether full underwriting at Vitality would give you that answer in advance is worth asking directly.
- Do you value knowing the position before you pay? That is a reason to ask whether the full-underwriting route is open to you, and what Vitality would send back.
- Are you moving from another insurer? The two years in the page 30 wording are counted after taking out the Vitality plan. Whether time already clear with a previous insurer counts towards them depends on the terms you are offered, so ask before you switch.
None of this tells you the answer; it tells you which questions bear on it. Those are worth putting to a broker, who can ask the same things of each insurer it quotes and lay the replies side by side; the page's form is how you reach one, and no fee is involved.
Questions to put to Vitality, or to whoever is quoting
- Which underwriting routes can I choose for this plan, and which is this quote based on?
- If full medical underwriting is available, what do I need to provide and what do I receive in writing before cover starts?
- On a moratorium, what counts as treatment, advice or medication for the two-year count, and does a check-up restart it?
- Which pre-existing conditions are permanently excluded, and where is that list?
- Can I move from one route to the other later, and on what terms?
Short answers
What is moratorium underwriting at Vitality?
On the August 2024 guide, it is a rule that leaves out any condition you knew of during the five-year window before your start date, whether or not a GP saw it. A separate clause says Vitality will cover "them" after two continuous years on the plan without treatment, advice or medication, then mentions conditions it excludes permanently; the moratorium is the likely reading of "them", but confirm it in the full guide you are issued.
Does Vitality offer full medical underwriting?
That depends on the plan and the terms in force when you buy, so ask Vitality before relying on either answer, or let the broker who phones you back check which routes your quote allows, free.
What are Vitality's underwriting options and limits?
The August 2024 guide sets out the moratorium, with the five-year look-back and the two-year clear period above. Which conditions are permanently excluded, and whether any other route is available, depends on the plan you are quoted.
Is Vitality's moratorium the same as other insurers'?
Not necessarily. Look-back and clear periods are set by each insurer's own wording, so what Vitality's guide says should not be carried over to another insurer, or the reverse. Freedom Health Insurance's guide, for one, also looks back five years, though its clause is a definition of pre-existing conditions and does not use the word moratorium (Freedom Elite Policyholder's Guide to Cover, April 2025, page 8, read 4 September 2026). Do insurers cover pre-existing conditions? holds the other wordings.
Your next step: get Vitality's answer, from Vitality itself or through a broker that quotes it, on which routes are open to you and what each would record about your history, and read it before paying anything.