Private health insurance runs in policy years — every wording this page reads counts in them — so "what it costs per year" is two numbers added together: the premium for a year of cover, and whatever that cover leaves you paying towards treatment in the same year. This page holds no premium data and gives no estimate, because healthcare insurance cost in the UK is built from your own age, address and choices rather than read off a list. What it can do is show what the policy documents commit to over a policy year: an excess that is a yearly amount on three of the four wordings we hold, limits counted per member per year, and a renewal date that starts both again.
The decision is whether a year of cover is worth buying and, if it is, how much of each year's bills to keep for yourself. Only a quote can put a figure on that. An FCA-authorised broker can take the choices this page sets out to the insurers it works with and come back with the year priced; the form on this page is the short way to one, at no cost to you. The broker is not whole-of-market, and you can also ask an insurer directly. Read on first, so that the figure you get back is one you can take apart.
What is actually annual about a policy
The policy year is the unit every document we hold counts in. Four things run on it.
- The premium buys a year of cover and is the one part of the year's cost not written into the terms.
- The excess, where you have chosen one, is a per-policy-year amount on Aviva's, Bupa's and WPA's wordings: the most you pay towards eligible treatment before the insurer pays, counted from the start of the year rather than from each claim.
- Benefit limits, on the Aviva wording we hold, are set "for each member, every policy year", a ceiling counted year by year.
- Renewal ends one policy year and starts the next, and on the one clause we hold that addresses it, restarts the excess for treatment still going on.
So the annual health insurance cost in the UK is partly a figure nobody can print for you and partly a set of amounts printed in the policy, and the second set is what this page reads. It is also what separates "per year" from "per month": what it costs per month takes that up.
Private surgery costs and the cost of cover are two different numbers
Searches for private surgery costs, a private medical appointment cost and the cost of private healthcare in the UK all land on prices for treatment: what a hospital or a consultant charges a patient who pays for themselves. Those are cash prices: what a policy exists to pay, and nothing to do with what a policy costs. This page carries none of them; what private hospitals charge is where the site deals with them, and private treatment and the NHS sets the two systems against each other.
The cost of private medical cover in the UK is the other number, and it is personal. A quote is built from things that are yours: your age, where you live, who is covered, how much of each year's bills you carry as an excess, where the out-patient limit sits, which hospitals are on the list, and the medical history the insurer underwrites. Any one of those can move the figure, which is why a table by age or a "rough cost" on this page would be invented. What a quote cannot change is how the policy counts the year; that is in the wording, and the rest of this page reads it.
The excess is a per-year amount, on the wordings we hold
An excess is the first slice of eligible treatment you pay yourself (what a private health insurance excess is covers the mechanism). For a page about the year the question is the period it runs over, and the four wordings we hold, all quoted in full on how much excess should you choose, answer it four ways.
- Aviva makes the excess "payable for each member every policy year", with six options to choose from, the lowest £100 and the highest £5,000 (Healthier Solutions terms and conditions, April 2025 issue, page 11, read 4 September 2026). Per member, and per year.
- Bupa works it through with a member called Helen, who pays a £100 excess out of a £250 physiotherapy bill and, if she needs other treatment "during the policy year", pays no second excess (Bupa By You policy guide, BINS 14718, 2024, page 10, read 4 September 2026).
- WPA has the member pay the excess "up to your chosen level per Policy year before we provide benefit" (Complete Health IPID, November 2025, page 2, read 4 September 2026).
- Freedom deducts the excess from the first valid invoice and from later ones until it has been fully applied, then has you pay it to the provider; the clause names no period, so whether it is a yearly amount is not settled here (Freedom Elite Policyholder's Guide to Cover, April 2025, page 31, read 4 September 2026).
Aviva's terms put money on it in worked examples. The first is the ceiling on the excess itself: however large the bill, the excess takes the level you chose and no more. That is not a ceiling on what the year can cost you — a benefit limit can sit above it, as the next section shows.
"For example, if you have a £5,000 excess and your treatment in a policy year costs £10,000, you will pay the first £5,000 and we will pay the rest"
— Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue), page 12, read 4 September 2026.
The floor is on the same page: where the treatment claimed for cost £1,000 and the excess was also £1,000, the member meets the full cost. So in a year of small claims each bill smaller than the excess still standing is yours; Freedom's is the clause that spells out the running-down, invoice by invoice, until the excess has been fully applied. Once it has, Aviva's terms say "we will pay benefits up to the amounts shown after the excess has been paid" (same terms, page 12). A year with no claims costs no excess on any of these wordings: each attaches the excess to a claim, and none of the clauses we hold collects it with the premium.
The level is the dial, and what each level does to the premium is the one thing no wording we hold can tell you. Ask for the year priced at two or three excess levels; the form on this page puts that request to an FCA-authorised broker, costs you nothing, and takes a few minutes to fill in.
Limits run on the same clock, and stack on top of the excess
A limit is the other written-down part of the year: a ceiling on what the insurer pays for a category of treatment, after which that category's bills are yours. Private health insurance benefit limits explained sets out the kinds; this page is about their period, which Aviva's terms state in the benefit table itself:
"The following benefits are subject to a combined out-patient limit of either £500 or £1,000 for each member, every policy year"
— Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue), page 7, read 4 September 2026. The sentence sits at the foot of a table row, and the list of benefits it governs is not in our extract.
Per member and every policy year, the same two phrases as the excess. The two stack, and Aviva's example puts one underneath the other in the same year:
"So if, for example, your excess was £200 and the treatment you were claiming for had a benefit limit of £500, you would have to pay the first £200 and we would pay up to a further £500 for that benefit in that policy year"
— same terms, page 12. The insurer's money starts after the excess and stops at the limit; anything beyond the two together in that policy year is the member's.
WPA's product summary caps specialist consultations, the private medical appointment cost that such limits bite on, at £250 as standard with an option sold to raise it (Complete Health IPID, November 2025, page 1, read 4 September 2026; quoted in full on the limits page); the period that cap runs over is the thing to ask about it. A limit can also go to nothing. On Aviva's reduced out-patient cover option with a £0 limit, treatment as an out-patient is not covered, consultations and diagnostic tests included (same terms, page 24), except through some of Aviva's networks (same terms, page 8), which the extract does not name. The middle options carry a cost of a different kind: on the same wording, the £500 or £1,000 reduced limit removes cover for complications of pregnancy and childbirth and for surgery on the teeth in a hospital, in every setting. A reduced limit is a different policy, not the same one at a different price.
Every figure below is Aviva's own illustration: the excess levels are options, the treatment costs are made up for the example, and none is a premium.
| Aviva's example | The member pays | Aviva pays |
|---|---|---|
| £1,000 excess; the treatment costs £1,000 | The full cost of that treatment | Nothing towards that treatment |
| £5,000 excess; treatment in the policy year costs £10,000 | The first £5,000 | "the rest" |
| £200 excess; the benefit claimed has a £500 limit | The first £200 | "up to a further £500 for that benefit in that policy year" |
| £5,000 excess; treatment carries on into the next policy year | The first £5,000 again, in the new year | Not restated in that sentence |
| £50 dental and optical excess; a £220 routine dental claim | £50, deducted from the claim | £170, paid to the member |
All from Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue), page 12, except the last row, which is page 11; read 4 September 2026. When a quote comes back, ask the insurer for its own worked example at that quote's excess level and out-patient limit, and for the period each limit runs over. If the example does not say "policy year", ask what it does say.
What a new policy year does
Renewal is where "per year" stops being a figure of speech. On the Aviva wording, a course of treatment still running when the policy year turns over meets the excess a second time:
"If the treatment carries on into the next policy year, another excess will apply, so you will again pay the first £5,000 of treatment received in that policy year"
— Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue), page 12, read 4 September 2026. The £5,000 is the excess in the example the sentence continues; the point is the second excess, at whatever level was chosen.
That is the clearest statement we hold of what a policy year is: a boundary that resets the member's share. The limit clause above is written the same way, "every policy year", so on that wording a new year brings a new combined limit, though the extract does not work a straddling course through for a limit as it does for the excess. No Bupa, Freedom or WPA clause we hold describes a claim that crosses renewal. It is the question to ask before a long course of treatment starts late in a policy year, and before you buy at all.
What a new year does to the premium is the part this page cannot read: no clause we hold describes the renewal notice, the new price, or how it is set. We hold nothing that says the figure rises, falls or stays put, nothing on whether prices across the market have been rising, and nothing on whether a policy renews by itself. Private health insurance renewal: what to expect covers the notice when it arrives, and whether health insurance renews yearly is dealt with separately.
One more thing changes with the year: the document itself. The clauses on this page are the April 2025 issue of Aviva's terms, read in an intermediary's document library on 4 September 2026. When we looked at Aviva's own site on 9 October 2026 it carried a March 2026 issue, and nothing here has been checked against that. The wording that governs your year is the one sent with your policy or renewal, not the one on a website, ours included.
A year can carry more than one excess
The excess on your certificate is not always the only one, and the others can be counted differently. Aviva's terms put a second, smaller excess on two benefits:
"Dental and optical excess Routine dental treatment and optical benefit each have an excess of £50"
— Aviva, Healthier Solutions terms and conditions (April 2025 issue), page 11, read 4 September 2026.
The same page shows it at work: a £220 claim for routine dental treatment covered by the policy is paid as £170, the £50 excess deducted and the balance paid to the member. Two things differ: it comes off a payment to you, where the main excess on the Bupa and Freedom wordings is paid by you to the practitioner or provider; and the clause says "each have an excess of £50" without saying whether that is once a policy year or once a claim, so its yearly cost is not fixed by this extract. If your policy carries routine dental or optical benefit, the period of its excess is a separate question from the main one's.
Two more things sit outside the main excess on other wordings, both quoted in full on how much excess should you choose. Bupa's Direct Access phone or video assessment carries no excess and does not draw on the out-patient allowance, where either of those applies to the policy, so one route into a Bupa claim starts neither clock (Bupa By You policy guide, BINS 14718, 2024, page 7, read 4 September 2026). WPA sells Shared Responsibility as a second way of sharing the cost: the member pays a quarter of each eligible claim up to a chosen level. The clause sets it beside the excess rather than saying which replaces which, and it does not say whether that ceiling runs per policy year (Complete Health IPID, November 2025, page 2, read 4 September 2026). Either makes a differently shaped year.
Then there is who the year is for. Aviva's excess and its combined out-patient limit are both "for each member", so a parent insuring a child alongside themselves holds two excesses and two limits each policy year, and a year in which both claim can meet both. We hold no clause saying how the other insurers count an excess or a limit across a family; the question has a page of its own. If you are weighing cover for yourself and a child, ask for the quote with the per-person excess shown; the form on this page will put that question to an FCA-authorised broker for you.
What to ask so the year's cost is known before you buy
The premium answers the first question. These answer the rest: the first four from clauses quoted on this page, the last two from what those clauses leave open.
- Is the excess counted per policy year, per claim or per condition, and is it per person? Aviva's and WPA's clauses say per policy year, and Bupa's worked example charges one excess for the whole policy year; Freedom's names no period.
- If treatment runs past the renewal date, is a second excess charged? On Aviva's wording, yes.
- What is the out-patient limit, which bills draw on it, what period does it run over, and does choosing a reduced one remove any cover?
- Is there a separate excess on dental or optical benefit, and does anything sit outside the main excess, as Bupa's Direct Access assessment does?
- Does the price differ for paying the year in one sum or monthly? Nothing we hold answers this.
- Which issue of the terms applies to my policy year, and is it the one I have been sent?
Put those to whoever quotes you. A quote that comes back with the answers beside the figure is a yearly cost; a figure on its own is a direct debit with the rest of the year left out.
Questions people ask about the yearly cost
How much does private health insurance cost per year in the UK?
There is no figure to give; this site holds no premium data. The cost of a year is the premium an insurer quotes for you plus what the policy leaves you paying in that year: the excess if you claim, anything above a limit, anything excluded. The first is a quote; the rest is in the wording.
How much should private health insurance cost?
There is no "should". Judge a quote by what the year commits you to: the excess level, whether it is per person, where the out-patient limit stops, and what a reduced limit removes. Two quotes at the same premium can describe very different years.
Is it cheaper to pay for a year up front than monthly?
Nothing we hold deals with how the premium is collected, so ask for both figures on the same quote. Paying monthly changes when you pay, not the period over which the excess and the limits are counted.
Is a yearly check-up part of private health insurance?
Not on anything we hold: every clause on this page is about excesses and limits on treatment, and none mentions a routine health check or screen. If an annual check-up is what you want, ask whether it is included before you buy; we have not established that any wording we hold includes one.
Does private health insurance cover braces?
We have not established it. The only dental wording we hold is Aviva's, which puts a £50 excess on routine dental treatment where the policy covers it, and says nothing about orthodontics. Ask the insurer for the clause.
How much is private health insurance for me and my son or daughter?
A quote, not a figure we can give. What the wording adds is that on Aviva's terms the excess and the combined out-patient limit are each "for each member", so a parent and child hold one of each, every policy year. What private health insurance for a family costs takes the question further.
The remaining step is the quote. Fill in the form on this page; an FCA-authorised broker can then price the year with the excess and out-patient limit set the way you want them, so the figure comes back with its shape attached.