Average cost of family health insurance in the UK

A word of caution

Before moving on to this article, we must point out that the averages we have given are based on several assumptions. The the cost of your family’s policy will be different. The best and fastest way to find out how much it would cost your family is to ask for a comparison quote.

How much does health insurance cost for individuals?

If you’re interested in the average cost of health insurance for individuals, read this recently completed guide where we’ve obtained over 700 quotes from leading health insurance companies.

What affects the cost of family health insurance?

Private health insurance is one of the more complicated types of cover you can take out in the UK. Most plans are incredibly configurable, and we as individuals are very different from each other. Add more people to the mix, ie. family of 3, 4, 5 or more members. You have a huge number of variables that will affect the price of your policy.

All of the following factors will affect your family’s private health insurance costs:

• Number of people on the shelf
• Age of family members
• Where you live in the UK
• Family medical history
• Whether the parents are smokers
• Current costs of private medical treatments and private medical care
• Selected list of hospitals
• Surplus on the shelf
• How the policy is insured (moratorium or full health insurance)
• Selected coverage level (hospital, partially outpatient, fully outpatient)
• Any extras (physiotherapy, dental cover, travel cover)

Physiotherapy and other therapies

Many people who approach us and take out health insurance policies want physiotherapy and, in some cases, other complementary therapies to be included in their policies. Although some health insurers will cover this as standard, not all will. So, if you lead an active lifestyle and need to be able to visit a physical therapist in case of injury, make sure to check if this is included. As with all options and parts of your health insurance, talking to a broker will help you get the coverage you need.

Cost of family health insurance (UK)

In order to give you a rough estimate of the cost of family health insurance, we will need to do a few things. First, we’ll break things down by family size – providing health insurance prices for families of 3, 4, and 5.

The comprehensive policy includes £500 of outpatient insurance

With many factors affecting the cost of private health insurance policies, we have to make some decisions on behalf of hypothetical families in order to make meaningful comparisons. To reduce the impact of where you live on prices, we’ll ask for quotes based on ten locations across the UK and then average the results. Quotations will be based on a moratorium download, effectively excluding any conditions you have suffered from in the past five years.

“Did you know that with the moratorium, if you don’t suffer from symptoms related to an excluded pre-existing condition for two years after taking out the policy, it will be covered by your policy?”

Other variables of private health insurance

We must be consistent with all our private health offers to be based on the following:

• The figures we provide will be based on the average of offers received for families living in the following cities; Southampton, London, Cambridge, Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff and Edinburgh.
• We will get prices from the five leading providers, Bupa, Axa PPP, Vitality, Aviva and WPA.
• We will always choose the lowest price from these leading suppliers.
• The policies will be contracted on a moratorium basis, which means that we will not have to disclose the applicant’s medical history.
• The policy excess will be set at £200 or as close to this as possible.
• The policy will include £500 of outpatient cover per insured person.
• No additional options, such as a dental or optical cover, will be added.
• Quotes obtained directly from providers on September 1, 2022.
• Children on the shelf are under 15 years old.
• We will give the price on the basis that both parents are 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 years old.
• The policy we opt for will be comprehensive and will provide inpatient, outpatient and outpatient coverage. (please note that what is and what is not will differ from service provider).

Average price of private health insurance for a family of three

The quotes below show the average cost of health insurance for a family of three in the UK in 2022.

As you can see, the cost of health insurance for a family of three increases significantly depending on the age of the adults. As we will show in the following sections, adding more children to the policy has no such effect.

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure that these averages are representative, the private health insurance prices listed are examples only; the cost of your policy will be different. Reque

Average price of private health insurance for a family of four

The table below shows the average cost of health insurance for a family of four in the UK in 2022.

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure that these averages are representative, the private health insurance prices listed are examples only; the cost of your policy will be different. 

Average price of private health insurance for a family of five

The table below shows the average cost of health insurance for a family of five in the UK in 2022.

Disclaimer: While every effort has been made to ensure that these averages are representative, the private health insurance prices listed are examples only; the cost of your policy will be different.