The Health Guide

Health insurance

How much does private health insurance cost in the UK?

The short answer

There is no single honest figure: premiums depend on age, postcode, cover level, excess, hospital list and underwriting basis. Market context is verified — 6.5 million people covered and £4 billion of claims in 2024 — but any “average premium” without a named source and date is unusable. Compare written, like-for-like quotes.

Written by Andrew Buscu. Reviewed by Emma Leadbetter.

Published . Last reviewed . Next review due .

What to know about how much private health insurance costs

  1. No single figure is honest, because price depends on age, postcode, cover level and underwriting basis. Read more
  2. Any “average premium” quoted without a named source and date cannot predict your own quote. Read more
  3. Fixing a specification first makes quotes from different insurers genuinely comparable. Read more
  4. Market scale is documented — 6.5 million people covered and £4 billion in claims in 2024. Read more

Thinking about how much private health insurance costs

What works well

  • A fixed specification makes quotes genuinely comparable.
  • Excess and hospital-list choices give real levers on price.
  • Annual contracts let you re-shop the market every year.

What to watch

  • Averages without sources cannot predict an individual quote.
  • A cheaper quote usually means less cover somewhere specific.
  • Introductory prices can rise sharply at the first renewal.

Why the honest answer is a method, not a number

Every circulated “average premium” hides a different mix of ages, postcodes and benefit levels, so it cannot predict your quote. The disciplined approach is to fix the specification first — outpatient level, excess, hospital list, underwriting basis — then collect written quotes against that identical specification and compare them line by line. What we can say with sources: the ABI reports the market processed a record £4 billion of claims in 2024 across 6.5 million covered people, which tells you the scale of what premiums fund, and WTW measured UK medical cost trend at 10.6 per cent in 2025 (source 4), which tells you why renewals move. No insurer publishes a comparable average premium by age band, so none is quoted here.

Write down your exact specification, request quotes against it in writing, and keep each insurer’s document with its date — a quote without a date is not comparable. Whatever the specifics of how much private health insurance costs, the discipline that protects you is always the same: get the insurer’s position in writing before treatment, keep the documents, and compare like with like. The CMA’s private healthcare market investigation imposed order-backed requirements on the private hospital market precisely because opacity on price and information harms patients. [1] The Private Healthcare Information Network exists to publish comparable performance and pricing information for private hospitals. [2]

In practice

Three choices move a quote more than anything else you control: the hospital list, the outpatient limit and the excess. Moving from a list that includes central London hospitals to a standard list, or from unlimited outpatient cover to a £1,000 limit, usually changes the price more than changing insurer does. The six-week option is the other big lever: the policy only pays for inpatient treatment when the NHS wait for it is longer than six weeks.

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Common questions

Why did my health insurance go up when I did not claim?
Premiums are re-rated every year for three things you do not control: you are a year older, the insurer’s claims costs across all its customers have changed, and medical costs have risen. WTW measured UK medical cost inflation at 10.6 per cent in 2025. A no-claims discount offsets only part of that, so a rise in a claim-free year is normal.[4]
What is the cheapest way to cut a quote?
Raise the excess, cap outpatient cover, choose a standard hospital list or add a six-week option. Each removes something specific. A higher excess means paying more when you claim. An outpatient cap limits consultations and scans. A narrower list removes some hospitals. The six-week option sends you to the NHS when its wait is short. Most people keep cancer cover and inpatient treatment in full.
Does my postcode change the price?
Yes. Insurers rate on postcode because private hospital charges differ across the UK, and London is the most expensive area. The hospital list multiplies the effect, so compare quotes for your own address on two list options.
Is Insurance Premium Tax included in the quote?
Yes. Quotes for private medical insurance include Insurance Premium Tax at the standard rate of 12 per cent.[3]

Sources

  1. Competition and Markets Authority. Private Healthcare Market Investigation Order 2014. 1 October 2014 (primary source)
  2. Private Healthcare Information Network. About private hospital pricing in the UK. Updated 16 June 2026 (primary source)
  3. HM Revenue & Customs (gov.uk). Insurance Premium Tax. Updated 6 March 2019; rates unchanged as accessed 15 September 2026 (primary source)
  4. WTW. 2026 Global Medical Trends Survey. Accessed 21 September 2026 (primary source)