An individual policy is private health insurance in your own name, covering you and nobody else, priced on you alone. The decision in front of you is whether to buy that for yourself, rather than hold it through an employer or go without, and an online form will put a number on it in minutes. This page is about what that number is built from, what it leaves out for one person, and what to have ready. The exact figure is a quote on your own age, postcode and medical history; an FCA-authorised broker can run that quote across several insurers at once, and reaching that broker takes the form on this page and nothing else; asking costs you nothing. This site is not the broker and holds no FCA authorisation: we introduce readers to one authorised firm and may be paid for it.
What “individual” means on a quote form
Private health insurance for one person is not a smaller version of a company scheme or a family policy. It is a different contract. You are the policyholder: the terms are written to you, the renewal notice comes to you, and every setting is a choice you make rather than one an employer made for you. You are also the only risk being priced: the two facts you cannot change, your age and where you live, are priced as yours rather than averaged across a workforce. That is why a form for one person is the easiest to fill in and the most provisional: the one answer it cannot price is your own medical history.
What an online form can price for one person
Two facts and a handful of choices. The facts are your date of birth and your postcode, and a quote for you cannot be priced without them. The choices design the policy: the excess, the hospital list, whether out-patient consultations and scans are capped, and whether dental, optical, therapies or mental health cover are added. What an excess is, how hospital lists work and what a benefit limit does each have a page; in general, taking a larger excess, a shorter hospital list or a tighter out-patient limit tends to bring the premium down, by an amount no page here can tell you.
As a broad sense of where one adult’s premium tends to sit on mid-range cover in the UK, indicative only, and neither a quote nor a figure anyone has put to you, the ranges this site uses are:
| One adult, by age | Indicative monthly range |
|---|---|
| In their thirties | around £30 to £60 a month |
| In their forties | around £40 to £80 a month |
| In their fifties | around £60 to £120 a month |
| At or near sixty | around £90 to £180 a month |
Those are indicative monthly figures, twelve of which fall due in a year, and nothing in them says you would land at the lower end: postcode, excess, hospital list and underwriting route all move one adult’s premium across and beyond those bands. The same ranges are on what private health insurance costs in the UK. An individual health insurance calculator is the same form with fewer questions still; our page on calculators explains why that makes its output an illustration. Then ask for your own specification priced at two excess levels and at two out-patient limits, to see what each cheaper version removes. A broker can run both in minutes, and the form on this page sends them the job, free.
What a form cannot price: your own history
The form either asks you to pick an underwriting route or puts you on one by default, and that choice decides what the number on screen will pay for. The four routes one insurer’s handbook names are quoted on whether insurers cover pre-existing conditions; what follows is the mechanism. Vitality’s membership guide puts the question the way a buyer would, and answers it:
“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. Our copy is broker-hosted rather than from Vitality’s own site; the guide issued with a plan is what binds.
The test is what you were aware of, not what a doctor recorded, and only you know the answer. A quote on a moratorium is priced before anyone has looked at your history, which is what makes it quick, and why it cannot yet say what is excluded. The same guide, on pre-existing conditions, says what can change later:
“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”
— Vitality, same Membership Guide, August 2024, page 30, read 10 October 2026. The extract ends on a bullet about pre-existing conditions Vitality permanently excludes, without naming them, so the clear period is not the whole position, and which conditions never return to cover is one for the full guide. Freedom’s definition of a pre-existing condition uses the same five years, quoted on the page linked above; two wordings are not a market standard, and Vitality’s is the only clear period we hold. Anyone with something on their record, or something noticed and not yet looked at, should read cover with a pre-existing condition before trusting an online figure. Residence is the other tickbox with a clause behind it, quoted on getting a quote online.
Coming off a company scheme, or choosing your own policy instead
Many people do not know whether their cover is group or individual. The test is who pays and who is written to: if the premium leaves an employer’s account and the renewal goes to HR, you are a member of a group scheme; if it leaves yours and the insurer writes to you, the policy is individual. Private health insurance group schemes has the other signs, and why an individual cannot join one.
Is group health insurance cheaper than individual cover? We cannot say: a scheme is rated across its members and a personal policy on one person, and which comes out lower depends on the group and the cover. What differs for you is structural: on your own policy the exclusions are decided on your history, the price follows your age rather than a workforce’s, and the cover does not end when a job does. If you are leaving a scheme, we hold no clause on whether, or how, an insurer carries a member over to a personal policy, so ask the scheme’s insurer and any new one: can my existing terms and exclusions carry across, on which underwriting basis, and by what date after I leave. Step by step, the move is on our page about changing or switching private health insurance.
Holding the policy yourself also means it is yours to stop. Aviva’s terms:
“The policyholder may cancel the policy after the cooling off period, but we will not refund any premiums that have been paid for cover up to the cancellation date”
— Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue), page 33, read 4 September 2026. Aviva has since published a later issue, which we have not read against this clause. Whether a fee applies to stopping mid-term is a question for the wording you are offered, and our page on cancelling private health insurance goes through it.
What to have ready before you start, and what to ask
A quote for one person is short; do not guess at it. Have these to hand:
- Your date of birth and the postcode you live at.
- Any previous cover, through an employer or your own: insurer, underwriting basis, end date, and any exclusions given in writing.
- Your medical history as you know it, including anything noticed, investigated or monitored without a diagnosis.
- The excess you could actually pay at the point of treatment, rather than the one that gives the lowest premium.
- The hospitals that matter to you, by name, and whether out-patient cover and add-ons are priced in or left out.
Using a broker to buy private health insurance has the general questions, on authorisation, panel and payment; these four belong to someone buying alone:
- Which underwriting route is this figure priced on, and what would the same cover cost on another?
- Is anything in my history going to be excluded, and when do I find out: before I buy, or when I claim?
- If I came from a scheme, which insurers would take my existing terms across, and is there a deadline?
- What moves this premium at the first renewal, and will you re-quote it or only forward the notice?
Questions people ask about buying cover for one
How do I get individual health insurance?
Decide the settings, have the same specification priced by several insurers, through their own forms or once through a broker, pick the underwriting route with your history in mind, and read what the insurer sends before paying.
When can I buy individual health insurance?
Whenever you like: no document we hold sets a time of year or an enrolment window for a personal policy. What the date you join affects is what counts as pre-existing, which buying private health insurance goes into.
Which is the best individual health insurance?
We do not rank insurers or recommend one; the right policy depends on your history, postcode and what you would claim for. Which private health insurance is best? sets out how to judge one against your own needs.
Can I get individual health insurance for my child?
A child is usually added to an adult’s policy rather than insured alone, and none of the wording we hold is written for a child-only policy, so we cannot confirm who offers one. Our page on child-only private health insurance takes that route, and the one on age limits for children covers how long a child can stay on yours.
Can I cancel an individual policy at any time?
On the Aviva wording quoted above, the policyholder can cancel after the cooling-off period, and premiums paid for cover already provided are not refunded. Whether your own wording adds a charge for leaving mid-term is the thing to ask before you buy.
That is what a form for one person asks, and what it quietly leaves out. Start it from the form on this page; from there an FCA-authorised broker quotes the specification you have just worked out to several insurers, on the underwriting route you choose, and the conversation costs you nothing.