Buying private medical insurance for yourself alone means choosing a build before you see a price: how much of the route to treatment the policy pays for, who picks the hospital, and how much of each claim stays with you. Those choices are what the types of individual policy actually are, and they move the premium more predictably than anything else you control, even though how far each one moves it differs from insurer to insurer. An FCA-authorised broker can set several of those builds next to each other, each priced for your age, where you live and your medical record. Ask for that through the form on this page, which goes straight to the broker; nothing is charged for the introduction.
This page sorts the kinds of policy one person can choose between and says which way each tends to push the price, without figures: indicative ranges by age are on the average cost of private health insurance, the price for one person has a page of its own in what cover for one person costs, and what a quote form asks a single buyer is on private health insurance for individuals.
Individual medical insurance plans: the three ways one person ends up covered
Before the type of policy comes the question of whose contract it is. Someone covering only themselves can be insured in one of three ways, and only the first gives them the whole menu this page describes.
- A policy in your own name. Nobody else is on it and every setting is yours to pick. The rest of the page is about this.
- A place on somebody else's policy. A partner's personal policy with you added as a member, or an employer's scheme. The holder or the employer chose the build, and you take the cover as it comes. Joining a partner's policy also ends the pricing as an individual: what cover for two costs has the indicative range for a couple, and how a given insurer prices the second adult is something the broker can explain free when they ring you back.
- Something that is not medical insurance. A health cash plan, or paying a hospital's cash price if and when you need treatment. Both turn up in searches for cheap individual plans, so both are taken further down.
In the UK a personal policy sits on top of the NHS rather than replacing it. You keep your NHS entitlement, and the policy broadly pays for private treatment of eligible conditions that begin after you join; what private health insurance is, and how it works sets out the contract itself. Searches for individual plans in Ontario, Saskatchewan or Guam, or from Blue Cross Blue Shield, reach this page too; those are Canadian and American arrangements for other health systems, and this page does not cover them.
The types of individual policy, from narrowest to fullest
Product names do not match from one insurer to the next, so one firm's entry-level policy and another's can pay for quite different things. Underneath the names, a policy for one person is assembled from a hospital core that every version carries and an out-patient layer that is missing, capped or full, with optional extras on top. That gives four broad builds. Their order by price is the most predictable thing about them; the size of each step is not.
| Build | What it pays for | Where it usually sits on price |
|---|---|---|
| Core only, sometimes called in-patient or treatment cover | Treatment when you are admitted as an in-patient or day-patient. The consultations and scans that lead up to an admission are for you to fund, or for the NHS | Generally the lowest of the four |
| Core with a capped out-patient allowance | The core, plus out-patient consultations and diagnostic tests up to a yearly sum shown on the schedule | Usually above core only; a lower cap tends to cost less than a higher one |
| Core with full out-patient cover | The core, plus out-patient consultations, tests and scans with a high limit or none, depending on the insurer | Usually higher again |
| Any of the above with options added | Extras such as therapies, mental health care, dental and optical, each taken as a separate choice | Each option generally adds to the premium of the build underneath it |
Treat the table as a ladder to be priced, not advice on which rung to stand on: ask for the build you want and the one beneath it on your own details, and the gap is what that step costs you.
What the table cannot show is where a given insurer draws its lines, and the two out-patient wordings behind this page raise different questions for a buyer working down the ladder. The Exeter's Health+ product summary puts three things under its out-patient heading: scans (CT, MRI and PET), surgery done as an out-patient, and physiotherapy after an operation, capped at three sessions (The Exeter, Private Medical Insurance — Insurance Product Information Document (Health+), MKTG770, June 2026, page 1, read 21 October 2026). Consultations are not in that line, and a summary is not the policy, so whether the consultation that orders the scan is paid for is a question for the full policy document, so check it there or have the broker look it up for you on the call-back. Freedom's guide to its Elite policy raises the opposite question: out-patient treatment is itself an option, listed with therapies, mental health care and a combined dental, optical and GP line, so the first thing to check on a Freedom quote is whether that option is on at all (Freedom Health Insurance, Freedom Elite — Policyholder's Guide to Cover, dated 1 April 2025, page 10, read 4 September 2026). Both are quoted in full on benefit limits explained; each is one line from one document and says nothing about that insurer beyond it.
The same page of the Freedom guide then gives the sentence a single buyer should carry into any purchase: “If an additional benefit is not shown on the certificate, you do not have that cover even though it is mentioned in this guide.” Which type of policy you hold is settled by the benefits printed on your certificate, not by the product name on the quote or what the brochure describes.
Three settings that sit across every type
The builds decide what gets paid for. Three further settings decide on what terms, and any of them can be laid over any build, which is why two quotes both described as core only can land a long way apart. Insured alone, each is a bet on your own circumstances and nobody else's.
Where you can be treated. A policy is written on a list of hospitals the insurer will pay at, and a shorter list generally costs less than a longer one. Some insurers also sell a guided route, where the insurer picks the specialist and hospital for you, and that generally costs less than choosing from a list; one insurer's summary names such a route beside three lists, quoted on hospital lists explained. Check whether the hospitals you would actually use, near home and work, are on the list you are quoted.
Whether the NHS goes first. Some policies carry an option under which, if the NHS can provide the treatment within a set period of a specialist recommending it, you have it on the NHS and the policy does not pay. Cover with that condition is generally cheaper than the same cover without it. Aviva's six-week version (Healthier Solutions terms and conditions, April 2025 issue, page 11, read 4 September 2026) is quoted on what private health insurance is, and the weeks that matter are the waits at the hospitals you would be sent to, which nobody can promise you in advance.
How much of each claim you carry. The excess is your own share of an eligible claim, paid first, with the insurer covering what is left; agreeing to a larger one usually lowers the premium. Whether it falls once a policy year or on each claim depends on the wording. On a policy with only you on it, you are the one person who will ever pay it, so the honest figure to choose is the one you could find at short notice. Both points are taken further on the excess explained and choosing an excess level.
The underwriting route, a moratorium or a full medical declaration, is not a fourth setting: it decides which parts of your history are excluded, not the shape of the cover, and which one comes out cheaper varies with the insurer and with your own history, a trade-off the broker can walk you through at no cost. How each works for someone buying alone is on the individuals page, and in the insurers' words on whether insurers cover pre-existing conditions.
Individual health insurance plans: prices, and where the gap between types comes from
An individual premium has two parts. Your age and postcode are fixed whichever build you choose; the build and the three settings above are the part you can move, so the differences between them are the part of the price that is genuinely a choice. Which way each step moves the price is fairly well known; how far is not, and it differs by insurer, by age and by area, so a gap someone else measured tells you little about yours.
That makes the useful request a small grid priced on you, rather than a single figure for a single type:
- The build you would choose if price did not come into it.
- That same build with a higher excess.
- One rung down the ladder: a capped out-patient allowance instead of full cover, say, or none instead of a cap.
- The narrowest build you would still accept, on the hospital list or guided route you would genuinely use.
Side by side, the four figures show what each step down takes off the premium and out of the cover, in your own numbers. The indicative ranges by age on the average-cost page describe where the market sits for one adult; they are not a forecast of any of the four. Paste the grid into the form here as written, and the broker can put the same four specifications to more than one insurer and return each price beside the benefits it buys. Asking takes a few minutes.
Group health plan vs individual: who chooses the type
“Individual group health insurance plan” joins two things the UK market keeps apart. An employer buys a group scheme and its staff are members of it; a person buys an individual policy and holds it. A group is something an employer sets up, not something one person normally buys into alone, and group health insurance schemes explains what makes a group. How to tell which kind you already have is on the individuals page. The question here is narrower: what the difference does to the type of cover.
On a scheme the build is chosen once, by the employer, for everybody on it. The out-patient level, the hospital list and the excess arrive already set, and the ladder earlier on this page is not yours to climb or descend. Whether a member can add options at their own expense on top of the employer's choice depends on the scheme; its administrator or HR team is the place to ask. On a policy of your own every rung is your decision, and so is the bill.
Which costs less for a given person, a scheme place or a policy of their own, depends on the scheme and the person, and the comparison is rarely like for like anyway: cover somebody else designed against cover you would design yourself. Anyone holding a scheme place and thinking about a personal policy as well should read claiming on two medical insurance policies first, because paying twice does not mean being paid twice.
Cheaper things that are not an individual policy
Several things searched for as affordable individual health insurance plans are other products altogether, not smaller versions of the builds above.
A health cash plan reimburses everyday costs, the optician, the dentist, a course of physiotherapy, up to a yearly amount per benefit, and does not pay for an operation. For one adult it is a different purchase rather than a smaller one, and health cash plans versus private health insurance compares the two.
Paying as you go means no policy at all: if you need an operation privately, the hospital quotes a cash price and you pay it. Published cash prices for named procedures are on private hospital prices; they are not premiums, and not a cheaper version of one.
International or expat cover is written on where you live rather than on top of NHS entitlement, and is priced on a different basis, which is why this site gives it no range borrowed from the UK figures. If you are moving abroad, what international cover costs is the page to read instead.
The sorting question is which bill you want protection from: a large, occasional hospital bill, which medical insurance is for, or a stream of small routine ones, which a cash plan is for.
Reading a benefit list when you are the only person on the policy
Comparing types often turns into counting benefits, but for one adult a longer list need not mean more cover, because some lines are written for people who will never be on your policy. Two of the wordings behind this page show it.
The Exeter's Health+ summary names five additional benefits, among them parental accommodation, home nursing and an NHS cash benefit, plus a no-claims discount (Insurance Product Information Document (Health+), MKTG770, June 2026, page 1, read 21 October 2026; quoted whole on the group schemes page). Parental accommodation, going by its name, is about a parent staying with a child in hospital, and on a policy covering one adult it has nobody to attach to. Whether the full policy document gives it any use for a single adult is worth checking. The no-claims discount points the other way: on a policy with only you on it, the only claims that could ever count towards it are your own. The summary gives no scale for the discount, so ask what it is worth before you count on it.
Aviva's Healthier Solutions terms carry a speech therapy benefit counted “for each child covered by the policy” (Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions, April 2025 issue, page 6, read 4 September 2026; in full on private health insurance for children). A real benefit for a family, and a blank line for a single buyer. Both Aviva lines on this page are from the April 2025 issue; a newer one, dated March 2026, is now on Aviva's site, so check both against the version that comes with your quote. The additional-benefit wordings themselves are compared on types of private health insurance policy.
None of this makes a policy poor value. It means striking out the lines written for other people before comparing two lists. If a particular benefit matters to you, ask the broker whether the build being quoted carries it and where on the certificate it would be shown.
Questions from people insuring only themselves
How much do individual health insurance plans cost?
It depends first on your age and postcode, and then on the build and settings you choose, which is why this page gives the order of the types rather than a figure. Indicative ranges by age for one adult are on the average-cost page, and the page on what cover for one person costs takes the price question on its own. An actual figure comes from a quote on your details.
Who has the best individual health insurance plan?
Not a question this site answers with a name: we do not recommend policies, and the best one for you depends on what you would actually claim for. For one person the useful test is narrower than best: which quote's certificate would carry the lines you would actually claim on, at a build you can afford. Which insurer to choose goes through how to judge them.
Are there affordable individual health insurance plans?
The lowest-priced versions are usually the narrow builds: core only, a higher excess, a shorter hospital list or a guided route, or an NHS-first condition on in-patient claims. Each costs less because it pays for less. The cheapest private health insurance goes further into that trade.
How do I compare individual health insurance plans?
Fix the build and the three settings first and have each insurer price exactly those; then the figures differ because of what each charges, not what each left out. The page on how to compare private health insurance policies takes it step by step.
Will individual health insurance plans for 2026 cost more than last year's?
Nobody can tell you in advance what a given policy will cost next year. What is generally true of a personal policy is that it is priced again at each renewal, on your age then; your renewal price covers what to do when the new figure arrives.
Can I change to a different type of policy later?
Whether you can change the build part-way through a policy year depends on the insurer's terms, so ask before you buy rather than assume it; the broker can find out for you on the free call-back. Moving to another insurer, or to different cover at renewal, is on changing or switching private health insurance.
Write out the four lines of the grid above, add the hospitals you would actually use, and put them into the form on this page as you wrote them. The FCA-authorised broker prices each of them with the insurers on its panel and shows you what every step buys; you pay nothing for the introduction.