Ask what health insurance plans cost and the honest first reply is a question back: which kind of plan? A UK policy can pay from the first consultation or only once you are admitted, can let you pick from a list of hospitals or send you where the insurer chooses, and can cover one person, a household or a whole staff. Each of those differences tends to push the premium one way or the other, and this page says which way, using the site's indicative ranges where they fit and the insurers' own wording to show what a lower-priced version leaves out. How big each step is comes down to which insurer is asked and who is being covered. An FCA-authorised broker can quote two kinds of policy next to each other on your age, postcode and medical history, which turns that step into a number that belongs to you. To ask, fill in the form on this page, naming the two kinds you have in mind if you know them; being introduced costs you nothing.
For the kinds of policy themselves, one at a time, read types of private health insurance policy; the job here is the price gap between them.
Health insurance plans: prices for one person, a household and a company scheme
The site keeps a single set of indicative ranges, and every one of them describes the same kind of cover: middle-of-the-road cover that includes out-patient benefit, on a moderate excess. What changes from one to the next is who the policy is for, not what it pays for. So the figures below settle the membership half of the question and leave the cover half to the next section. Read each as an indicative sketch of the UK market, nobody's quote and no insurer's price; the exact figure for you is the one the broker gets back, priced on your own details.
- A policy for one adult. For someone in their forties, indicatively £40 to £80 a month, which is £480 to £960 a year. Age shifts this more than anything else, and the decade-by-decade rows sit on the UK average-cost page.
- One policy for two adults. Two people in their forties on a single policy come to roughly £80 to £150 a month, £960 to £1,800 a year, as an indicative range. That is a range for the pair, not one adult's range doubled.
- A family policy. Two children and two parents aged in their thirties or forties, all on one policy: indicatively £100 to £200 a month, which over twelve months is £1,200 to £2,400.
- A child joining a parent's policy. Each child placed on an adult's policy adds, indicatively, £10 to £25 a month, so £120 to £300 a year, to what the adult already pays.
- A company scheme. Priced by the employee and by the year: an indicative £500 to £1,200 for each employee over a year, with the cost per head tending to ease as headcount rises.
These are five separate answers, not a scale to do sums on. Dividing the family range by four does not give a price per person, and a household of three or five does not sit halfway between two lines; no range here describes either, so have the actual household quoted. Nor is the foot of any range the likely answer. A figure near the bottom is usually a policy with some cover taken out, which is the subject of the next section.
One cost grows with the number of people on a policy, and the premium never shows it. Under Aviva's terms, the excess is "payable for each member every policy year" (Healthier Solutions terms and conditions, April 2025 issue, page 11, read 4 September 2026); page 7 counts its combined out-patient limit the same way. A higher excess generally brings a premium down, whoever the insurer; on that wording, a household that takes one also takes on paying it once for each person who claims in a bad year. Whether another insurer counts its household excess the same way is for its own wording to say. Aviva now publishes a newer, March 2026 issue, so check these lines against the version your quote comes with, or have the broker confirm when it calls whether they still read the same.
Keep the line that describes your household to hand when quotes arrive; the kind of cover inside each quote will explain much of where it lands against that line.
Comprehensive or budget: which way each difference in cover moves the price
Within any one of those memberships, kinds of policy differ in what they will pay for, and on price they follow one pattern often enough to state it: the version that pays for less, or leaves more of each claim with you, is usually the cheaper. The table pairs the common choices with what the lower-priced side gives up, in an insurer's own words where one is quoted. How much each pair differs, in pounds or as a percentage, varies by insurer and by person, which is why the table gives no figure.
| Choosing between | Usually priced lower | What the lower-priced side gives up | The wording behind it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Out-patient cover, or in-patient and day-patient cover only | In-patient only | The consultations and tests before any admission, which you pay for or have on the NHS | Aviva's reduced out-patient cover – £0 limit leaves out-patient treatment uncovered, consultations and diagnostic tests among it (terms, page 24), though treatment through certain Aviva networks it leaves unnamed is excepted (page 8). Both on the private hospital prices page |
| Full out-patient cover, or a capped allowance | The cap, and a lower cap below a higher one | Out-patient bills above the cap for the rest of the year, and on one wording more than that | Aviva's £500 and £1,000 options are a combined limit across a group of out-patient benefits, per member a policy year (page 7, on what cover costs per year); picking either also removes cover, in-patient included, for childbirth and pregnancy complications and for operations on the teeth carried out in hospital (page 8, on benefit limits explained) |
| A standard consultation cap, or paying to lift it | The standard cap | Specialist consultations beyond it | WPA's Complete Health summary puts a £250 ceiling on specialist consultations and sells an Extra Out-patient Consultations option to raise it (IPID, November 2025, page 1; on benefit limits explained) |
| Optional benefits added, or left off | Fewer options | Whatever the option would have paid for | Freedom's Elite guide lists out-patient treatment among its optional extras, alongside therapies, mental health care, and dentist, optician and private GP fees, each held only if printed on the certificate (Guide to Cover dated 1 April 2025, page 10; on benefit limits explained) |
| A hospital list, or a guided route | The guided route; and a shorter list below a longer one | Your say over which specialist and which hospital | Varies by insurer; one insurer's summary naming a guided option beside three lists is on hospital lists explained |
| An NHS-first condition, or none | With the condition | Private treatment the NHS could give you within the set number of weeks | Aviva's six-week option is one example, printed on what private health insurance is |
| A low excess, or a high one | The high excess | The first slice of eligible treatment, once a year or per claim depending on the wording | Aviva offers excess choices running from £100 up to £5,000 in six steps (page 11); WPA's summary also describes Shared Responsibility, under which the member pays a quarter of eligible claims up to a chosen level (IPID, page 2). Both on choosing an excess level |
Aviva clauses are from the Healthier Solutions terms and conditions, April 2025 issue; every document in the table was read on 4 September 2026; each is one passage, and the rest of that insurer's cover sits in its full terms.
Two things in the table matter more than any single row. A lower-priced version is a different policy rather than a reduced price on the same one, and the difference can reach past the line you meant to change: on Aviva's wording, a cap on out-patient cover also removes two kinds of in-patient treatment. And the ordering is more dependable inside one insurer's range than across insurers, because firms draw the lines in different places. The Exeter's Health+ summary keeps scans and out-patient surgery in its out-patient line (Insurance Product Information Document, MKTG770, June 2026, page 1, read 21 October 2026), while Freedom makes out-patient treatment itself an option, so two policies both sold as the cheaper kind can be cheaper for different reasons. A lower price on its own does not say whether that insurer charges less or simply pays for less.
Where you are torn between two rows, those two are what to have quoted. Send the pair through the form on this page, worded as plainly as the table words it, and each insurer the broker asks returns a figure you can set against what it pays for.
Plans this page does not price: government, ACA, sharing schemes and expat cover
Plenty of what gets searched alongside this question concerns another country. ACA and exchange plans, Blue Cross Blue Shield, prices on healthcare.gov, Christian health-sharing plans, Maine and Alberta, Tata's price lists: these belong to American, Canadian and Indian systems that work nothing like the UK's, so none gets a price here.
There is no UK government health insurance plan to buy. The state's health service here is the NHS, paid for out of general taxation rather than a premium, and private medical insurance is bought on top of it, not instead: your NHS entitlement stays, with or without a policy. The government neither sells nor prices private cover, which is why gov.uk is not the place to look for a list of plans and prices. Private against public is a different comparison from this page's, and private health insurance versus the NHS makes it.
Two neighbouring products are priced on a different footing altogether. A health cash plan pays fixed sums towards everyday bills such as the dentist and the optician, not for an operation, so it is a separate purchase rather than a cheaper policy; health cash plans versus private health insurance puts the two side by side. Expat and international cover is based on your country of residence, with no NHS underneath it, and priced accordingly, so none of the UK ranges above describes it and this page offers no substitute. International and expat private health insurance is where that question belongs.
Getting two kinds of policy priced against each other
A printed price list would struggle to mean much: the premium is set on the person, so a printed table of plans and prices would describe somebody else. An online estimator can give a rough idea, but one figure for one kind of cover is not a comparison between two; private health insurance cost calculators says what they can and cannot tell you. The comparison that answers this page's question is narrower, and you can set it up yourself:
- Pick the one choice you are undecided on, say out-patient cover against none, or a hospital list against a guided route.
- Hold everything else still: the same insurer, excess, underwriting route and start date for both versions.
- Ask for each figure with the schedule or certificate wording it would come with: on Freedom's wording what is printed there, not the product name, is the cover you hold, and the question is worth putting to any insurer.
- For a household, ask whether each person carries their own excess and limits, and, if separate policies are an option, ask for a price for both shapes on identical settings; family health insurance plans explains why that matters.
- Ask which issue of the terms each quote is written on.
The difference between the two figures is what that one choice costs on your details, which no range on this site can give you. Put the pair in the form on this page, choice by choice, and the FCA-authorised firm behind it prices both versions across its panel at once. Expect it to take you a few minutes.
On a company scheme, most of this is not yours to set. The employer chooses the kind of cover once, for every member, and the rows in the table above arrive already decided. If you are a member wondering whether to hold a second policy of your own alongside it, the two-policies page explains why two contracts rarely pay twice.
Plan prices: the questions behind the searches
What are affordable health insurance plans, and which are cheapest?
The affordable versions are the ones on the lower-priced side of the table above, and every one of them is cheaper by paying out on less. Which insurer comes out cheapest turns on your own details, something the broker can compare across its panel free once it calls; our cheapest-cover page sets out what each cut costs you in cover.
Is a 12-month health plan the normal kind?
Generally, yes: UK private medical insurance is usually sold as a yearly contract, with the premium paid monthly or for the year, and the excess and limits in the Aviva wording above are counted by the policy year. If you want cover bought one month at a time, ask whether an insurer offers it before you apply. Cover for a trip abroad is travel insurance, a separate product.
Do health insurance plans renew automatically, and when does cover end?
Often they roll on at the anniversary on the new year's terms unless you act, but that describes the market in general rather than any policy's wording, and your own documents decide; renewing a private health insurance policy goes through it. Personal cover ends if you cancel or stop paying, and a place on a company scheme usually ends when you leave the job.
What is the amount a plan makes you pay first, before it pays anything?
The excess, where one is chosen, and in the Aviva and WPA wordings in the last row of the table above it is an option rather than a fixture: the first part of eligible treatment, which you pay before the insurer does. A bigger excess generally means a smaller premium; only a quote at each level shows the saving in pounds.
Do health insurance plans cover pre-existing conditions?
Conditions that predate a personal policy are generally excluded, and whether you join on moratorium terms or by declaring your history in full decides how that exclusion is applied; company schemes are sometimes written with no medical history taken, and the scheme's own terms set out how that works. A search for a plan with no waiting period usually runs into the moratorium, under which a recent condition stays outside cover until a clear spell, of a length each insurer sets, has gone by. The insurers' own wording is on the pre-existing conditions page.
Do company health insurance plans cost less than buying your own?
Not necessarily: a scheme is priced across the group, and whether the result undercuts what the same staff would pay buying one by one turns on the people in it and the basis it is written on. As a broad indication, not a quote, a scheme runs about £500 to £1,200 for every employee annually, and the broker can price an actual one. When the employer pays, the employee normally pays tax on it as a benefit in kind; that is our understanding rather than tax advice. For the reporting side, see the page on tax and private health insurance.
Which health insurance companies are there in the UK?
The policy documents quoted on this page come from Aviva, Bupa, Freedom Health Insurance, The Exeter, Vitality and WPA, which is neither a complete list nor a ranking. UK private health insurance providers compared looks at the field more widely. If you meant hospitals rather than insurers, hospital lists explained covers which ones a policy will pay at.
The next step is one difference in cover, the household it is for, and both versions written out for the form on this page. What the FCA-authorised broker brings back is that difference as a figure on your own details, which is the one number this page cannot give you.