Private health insurance for children — cheaper options

You want your child covered without paying for more than you need. Either you add the child to a policy you already hold, or you look for one with the child as its only member; either way the price comes from a handful of settings, and the cheapest quote has most of them turned down. As an indicative range and not a quote, one child joining a parent's existing policy usually lands around £10 to £25 a month, £120 to £300 a year. That is the reader the figure describes, and the bottom of it is the stripped policy; for a child insured alone we hold no figure. Your own child's number is priced on their age, their history and your settings, and an FCA-authorised broker can run those past several insurers at once. Send the form on this page to begin; the introduction costs you nothing.

What a low quote for a child has usually moved

A child's quote carries the same settings as an adult's: the excess, the out-patient limit, the hospital list, who picks the specialist, and whether private treatment is claimable when the NHS could do it within a set time. Each, turned towards the cheaper end, generally brings the premium down; by how much, no wording we hold says. What the wordings do say is what each setting removes, the half of "cheap" the premium line never shows. Two things sharpen this for a child. On the one wording that settles it, Aviva's, the excess and the out-patient limit are each counted per member, so a cut made to trim the child's share of the premium is one the child's own claim meets. And a private claim usually begins as an out-patient, at a GP referral and a consultation, which is where the cheaper settings bite hardest.

The excess: the easiest number to raise, and the first thing a child's claim meets

The excess is the opening slice of each year's treatment cost that is yours rather than the insurer's. A higher one usually lowers the premium, and on a child's quote it is the number most tempting to push up. Aviva's Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue, page 11, read 4 September 2026) give six excess options between £100 and £5,000 and apply the excess to each member every policy year; the clause is quoted in full on the families page: on that wording the child has their own excess at the chosen level, and a parent's does not absorb it. Whether a child can carry a lower excess than the adults, or none at all, is not in the clause; Aviva's row starts at £100 and says nothing either way. Aviva has since issued a March 2026 edition, unchecked by us, so every Aviva line here is the April 2025 wording.

In Aviva's worked example (page 12 of the same terms), £1,000 of treatment meets a £1,000 excess and the member pays the lot; a child's consultation and a scan can sit entirely beneath an excess that big, and how much excess to choose weighs that trade. Bupa's By You policy guide (BINS 14718, 2024, page 10, read 4 September 2026) has the excess falling once a policy year rather than on every claim, and WPA's Complete Health product summary (November 2025 issue, page 2, read 4 September 2026) offers a 25% co-payment on each eligible claim, up to a chosen level, instead; whether either counts per child or per policy is the question for both.

The out-patient limit: where a child's claim begins, and where a cheap quote has cut

Out-patient treatment is the consultations, tests and scans that happen without a bed; a lower limit on it generally lowers the premium, and the wordings we hold show three depths of cut.

• A cap. WPA's summary puts a £250 standard ceiling on specialist consultations per policy year, raised by an optional extra (page 1). Aviva's reduced out-patient options place a group of benefits under £500 or £1,000 combined, per member, per policy year (page 7 of its terms).
• A cap that takes other cover with it. On Aviva's wording the £500 or £1,000 limit also strips out, in every setting, cover for pregnancy and childbirth complications and for dental surgery done in a hospital (page 8; the clause is on benefit limits explained). The second reaches a child: see children's dental cover.
• No out-patient cover. Aviva also offers a £0 out-patient option on which no out-patient treatment is covered, consultation and diagnostic tests included (page 24), save through certain networks our extract leaves unnamed (page 8). On a child's quote it looks cheapest, and it removes the part of a claim a child most likely uses.

Whatever the level, ask whether it is per member or per policy. These two settings decide most of what a cheap child quote has given up, so take both to the quote as questions: a broker can get each insurer's answer in writing beside its price, and asking through the form here is free and quick.

Hospital lists, guided referral and the six-week option: the quieter cuts

Three quieter settings remain. A shorter hospital list tends to cost less than a longer one; The Exeter's Health+ product summary (October 2025, page 1, read 4 September 2026), for example, offers four treatment options from a guided specialist route up through essential, standard and extended lists (quoted on hospital lists explained). For a child the question is which hospitals on the list admit children, and from what age: as far as we know each hospital sets its own rule, and we hold no clause on any, so settle it before taking the shorter list.

A guided option, the specialist chosen from the insurer's panel rather than by you, generally costs less than open choice. The six-week option cuts differently: on Aviva's wording, private in-patient or day-patient treatment cannot be claimed if the NHS can provide it within six weeks of the specialist recommending it, and the NHS cash benefits go too (page 11 of its terms; quoted on private health insurance versus the NHS). It tends to lower the premium; what the NHS wait would be for your child's treatment we cannot say, so put it to the hospital.

Adding a child to your own policy, or buying cover for the child alone

The range at the top is for a child added to an existing adult policy; a whole household's range is on the family-of-four page. Nothing we hold says whether an insurer rates a child at the same price as an adult, so ask for the premium split per person. Low-cost child-only health insurance, with no adult on the policy, is the other arrangement people search for; none of our clauses is written for it, so whether it is cheaper, or offered at all, this page cannot say. The page on child-only cover takes that route, and the policy types page sets the arrangements side by side.

Two more things decide whether a cheap quote is worth having. The first is the lines a policy carries only because a child is on it, which a cut-down quote may have dropped. Aviva's terms hold two: a parent's stay in hospital with a covered child of 15 or under, quoted on the families page, and a small GP-referred speech therapy allowance for each child on the policy, quoted, footnote and all, on the policy types page. Neither is why anyone buys cover; the point is that child-specific lines exist, and a quote stripped to its cheapest options should be checked for whether they survived.

The second is underwriting, which no setting makes cheaper and which decides what the policy pays for. Whether a child is underwritten on their own history, and by which route, is in no wording we hold, so ask; if they are, a condition on their record meets the policy's pre-existing-condition test, and none we hold writes a separate one for a child (whether insurers cover pre-existing conditions). The cover also ends: Freedom's Elite policyholder's guide (April 2025, page 42, read 4 September 2026) keeps a child on until the policy year in which they turn 25 is over (quoted on the families page), age limits for children has the questions for every other insurer, and the baby cost page takes the newborn case.

What a child's operation costs with no policy behind it

One children's procedure, at one hospital, is priced in this site's figures: Spire Bristol Hospital's published self-pay price for a tonsillectomy and adenotonsillectomy on a child was £3,595 when captured on 4 September 2026, and we hold no other hospital's figure to set beside it. Self-pay means what a parent paying the hospital directly is charged, with no insurer involved: not a premium, and nothing to do with the range at the top. The same figure sits on Bupa health insurance for children, and the NHS route, free at the point of use, is on what the NHS gives a child free. Beside a cheap quote, a £1,000 excess is a bill against that figure, and a £0 out-patient limit means the consultation that led to it was yours. Ask what, after those settings, the policy would pay towards a bill of that shape, in writing, before you buy.

Questions parents ask about cheap health insurance for kids

How much is children's health insurance?

Indicatively, and only as a range, £10 to £25 a month, £120 to £300 a year, for a child joining a parent's existing policy; the real figure is a quote on your child's age, your postcode, the underwriting and the settings above, and whether a child is priced below an adult is for that quote to show, since we hold no premium for either.

Can I get private health insurance for my child only?

None of the clauses we hold describes cover with a child as the sole member, so we cannot say which insurers offer it or at what price. The page on child-only private health insurance has the questions to settle before buying.

Is there cheap medical insurance for an autistic child?

No insurer's price is ours to give, and nothing here is about any child's care. Two contract terms matter more than the premium: whether the insurer treats a condition as chronic, since the wordings we hold exclude long-term management, and how a diagnosed condition is underwritten; the page on private health insurance for a disabled child takes both.

Does cheap cover for a child pay for braces?

Not on anything we have read: the wordings we hold that mention orthodontics all exclude it. Children's dental cover sets out what a dental option pays for; the page on whether to take out cover for a child asks if any of it is worth paying for.

You know now which settings you would move, and what each takes out. Put the child's details and those settings into the form on this page; what comes back from the FCA-authorised broker is each insurer's price for that cover, with its per-member answers in writing beside it.