Private health insurance for one person, bought in your own name, costs roughly £30 to £60 a month in your thirties and £250 to £500 a month in your eighties, on indicative market ranges dated October 2026 that are not quotes. That is the spread to hold in your head when you ask what a single policy costs: the decade of life you are in does most of the work, and your excess, hospital list, postcode and medical history decide where within the range you land. Weighing up cover just for yourself? Send the form on this page with just your own details in it, and an FCA-authorised broker rings back free of charge to price a version built around you.
What one adult pays at each age: indicative ranges
Each line below describes a lone policyholder with nobody else on the contract, a middling policy that includes out-patient cover, a moderate excess, and the premium collected by the month. These are broad market bands, dated October 2026, and none of them is any insurer’s price. The right-hand figures are simply the monthly band multiplied by twelve.
| Age of the one person on the policy | Each month (indicative, October 2026) | Over twelve monthly payments |
|---|---|---|
| 30 to 39 | £30–£60 | £360–£720 |
| 40 to 49 | £40–£80 | £480–£960 |
| 50 to 59 | £60–£120 | £720–£1,440 |
| Around 60 | £90–£180 | £1,080–£2,160 |
| 70 to 79 | £150–£300 | £1,800–£3,600 |
| 80 to 89 | £250–£500 | £3,000–£6,000 |
Find your own decade and read across: at 44 you are on the second line, at 58 the third. Each band opens above the one before it, which is the plainest thing the table shows a single buyer: a premium that sits comfortably at 45 is unlikely to stay there for the same cover ten years later, and it is looked at again every year in any case. Vitality’s Membership Guide (print code VHTCR0002 08/2024, page 34, read from a copy that mytribeinsurance.co.uk hosts) puts the annual reset in one line: “We have the right to alter the terms of your plan at each annual renewal date, including premium rates and cover.” What to do when that letter arrives is on your renewal price, and the same bands broken down for monthly budgeting and for a full year sit on the per-month page and the per-year page.
One member or several: what a single policy holds and what adding people changes
On a policy of your own you are the only member, so every limit and every excess belongs to you alone. Aviva’s Healthier Solutions terms, in the March 2026 edition (AV1590050_GEN6842_0326; check the terms sent with your quote), explain at PDF page 12 that the excess is applied to each member each policy year, and go on: “This means that if a claim or course of treatment continues from one policy year to the next, the excess will apply again.” Insured alone under that wording, you meet one excess in a policy year, and a second if a long course of treatment runs across the anniversary. The way excesses work from one insurer to the next is compared on what an excess is.
Bringing someone else onto the policy changes the arithmetic. Vitality’s guide, on that same page 34, names moving house and adding or removing dependants among the things that can change your plan premium during the plan year. The indicative bands this site uses for two adults or a whole household describe one shared policy, not separate single policies added together, and they are set out on the couples page and the family page. Whether one joint policy undercuts two separate ones at your two ages varies by insurer, and a broker can price both layouts for you on the free call-back.
The levers a single buyer controls
No effect in this table is sized: the direction a setting usually pushes a premium is general market knowledge, while how far it pushes yours shows only on a quote.
| Lever | Which way it usually moves the premium | What it hands back to you |
|---|---|---|
| Excess | A higher excess generally brings it down | You pay the first part of eligible costs yourself; on the Aviva wording above that is once per member each policy year, and again if treatment runs on into the next |
| Out-patient limit | A lower limit, or none, usually lowers it | Consultations and tests that need no overnight stay are paid for only up to the limit; benefit limits explained covers what follows once it is spent |
| Hospital list | A narrower list usually costs less | Fewer hospitals to choose from, which matters most if the nearest ones are not on it |
| Guided or NHS-first options | Usually lower than the fully open version | The insurer steers which specialist you see, or you are treated on the NHS when it can do so within a period the policy sets |
| Underwriting route | Differs between insurers and between people | It settles how conditions you already have are handled, so a moratorium quote and a fully declared one are not like for like |
| Paying yearly or monthly | Lower only where the insurer offers a reduction for paying annually | A bigger single payment; the per-year page goes through the payment wordings |
Age and postcode are missing from the table because you cannot trade them away; the levers above are the whole of what you decide. Even postcode is handled differently from one insurer to the next. Freedom’s page “How Much Does Health Insurance Cost?” (read 26 October 2026) observes that some insurers may charge more for an expensive location such as London, and says of its own pricing: “Freedom Health Insurance offers you the same premium, no matter where you live.” That is Freedom speaking for Freedom, not a rule for the market.
AXA Health prints two dated price examples for one person on its personal plan, a 30-year-old and a 40-year-old at the same Bournemouth postcode, each with the cover, excess and hospital network it was priced on and marked correct as of 14 April 2026. They are one insurer’s illustration rather than a market range or a quote, and they make the point of this table: a price means little until you can see the settings printed beside it. The figures and their settings are reproduced on the cheapest health insurance companies page, and what AXA Health insurance costs looks at that insurer alone.
When you compare, move one lever at a time and leave the rest where they are. Tell the broker which settings you would not give up, for instance out-patient cover or a hospital near home, and which you could stretch, such as a larger excess; the FCA-authorised broker who phones after you send the form here can price that combination at more than one insurer, with no fee.
The premium is only part of what one person pays in a year
With nobody else on the policy, every bill that the premium does not absorb comes to you. The first is the excess. The second can be a hospital shortfall. Aviva’s March 2026 terms, at PDF page 13, deal with in-patient or day-patient treatment a hospital Aviva recognises but which falls outside your list and its networks (an NHS pay-bed excepted): there, the most Aviva will pay is the average cost of hospital charges for equivalent treatment across the hospitals on your list, and the terms warn that this could leave a shortfall the policy does not cover, while a treatment that costs less than that average has its hospital costs paid in full. So a shorter list can lower the premium and, on that wording, push part of a bill back to you if you are treated elsewhere. How the excess and the limits add up across a whole policy year is worked through on the yearly cost page.
The other cost worth knowing before you start paying is what stopping does. Vitality’s guide, on page 34 again, says your entitlement to benefit ends after the last day of the period covered by your final premium payment, and that no further benefit is payable for treatment received after that date even if a claim started before the cover ended or you are in the middle of treatment. Other insurers word this their own way, so ask about the cancellation and refund terms on any quote; cancelling private health insurance sets out what several wordings say.
Buying for yourself or joining an employer scheme
On a scheme, the cost that reaches a member is usually not a premium at all. The employer pays the insurer and chooses the excess, out-patient level and hospital list for everybody; what company health insurance costs and how group schemes work describe that side. On a policy of your own, the full premium in the table above leaves your account each month, and every one of those settings is yours to set.
Tax is where the two costs differ in kind, not just in size. In general terms, and this is not tax advice: when an employer pays, the cover is normally a benefit in kind, so the member is generally taxed on its value rather than paying the premium; when you pay yourself, the premium comes out of income already taxed and attracts no relief, and the price you are quoted already includes Insurance Premium Tax. No rate or threshold is given here, because yours depends on your own income; the tax page sets out the general shape.
That makes a like-for-like comparison harder than it looks. A scheme place costs a member the tax on a benefit somebody else designed; a policy of your own costs the whole premium for cover you designed. If a job is ending and a personal policy is the next step, changing medical insurance goes through the move, and anyone tempted to keep both should first read claiming on two medical insurance policies.
Turning the table into a price for you
Five fields make up the whole of the form on this page: your name, an age band, phone, email and postcode. Nothing about your health or the cover you want goes into it. Those are talked through when the broker rings, so before the call it helps to decide three things that weigh more on a policy for one: the excess you could pay out of your own pocket on the day, with no one to share it; whether out-patient cover matters enough to you to pay for; and, if you have employer cover now, when it ends. With those answers a quote can be built in more than one version and set side by side. Ask as well how the price will be worked out at renewal, because on a policy for one it rests on you alone: Vitality’s Membership Guide, at page 39, builds each renewal premium from your age, a base rate for the cost of providing healthcare, and an adjustment reflecting your claims record and Vitality status, and shows that adjustment on your membership certificate before each plan year.
Answers for people insuring just themselves
How much is private health insurance for one person a year?
Twelve times the monthly band for your age. On the indicative ranges dated October 2026, a single policyholder in their fifties would read £720 to £1,440 for the year, and your own price comes from a quote built on your age, health and choices.
My age is not in the table. What does a single policy cost for me?
The bands this site holds start at 30, and there is no line between “around 60” and the seventies, so no figure is given for someone in their twenties or mid-sixties and a neighbouring line should not be stretched to cover them. For a figure at your actual age, send the form; pricing one is part of the free call-back.
Is a single policy the same thing as an individual one?
For pricing purposes, yes: both mean a policy covering one named person, priced on that person. The individuals page deals with the questions an online form puts to someone buying for themselves, and the plans page with the kinds of policy open to one person.
Why did the quote I saw come in below these ranges?
A lower figure usually means lower settings behind it: a bigger excess, a tighter out-patient limit or a shorter hospital list. Ask what each of those is before setting it beside a band, and remember the bands are not anyone’s price list.
To put a figure on a policy for just you, send the form and let a broker phone back with the versions you care about priced side by side; it costs nothing.