What's the best health insurance for the over 70s?

There's often confusion about health insurance and whether health cash plans, like those from Benenden or SimplyHealth, are insurance products. To help you know the difference, here's a brief explanation:

Health insurance covers unpredictable health conditions that typically require hospital treatment or surgery. Private health insurance often extends to other services such as physiotherapy and mental health care, but crucially, it covers unpredictable health issues.

Health cash plans help you budget for routine medical expenses such as trips to the dentist, opticians, audiologists and sometimes physiotherapy. These plans aren't insurance, as they're there to cover predictable costs.

We have a detailed guide explaining why health insurance gets more expensive as we age. But in short, it's because we're at a higher risk of developing medical conditions as we age. Treatment also becomes more complicated and costly due to patients often having comorbidities* that have to be considered. Finally, recovery from treatment often takes longer, again pushing the cost of claims up for insurers.

*Comorbidities are medical conditions that coexist alongside a primary diagnosis and affect your health, including your treatment and outlook.

Some top health insurance companies have upper age limits that restrict people from joining after a certain age. Importantly, these restrictions only apply to people joining these companies. If you get a policy before you reach one of the ages listed below, you can keep it for as long as you wish.
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Age limits for new members by provider:

• Aviva - no upper age limit
• Axa Health - Full medical underwriting after 75th birthday
• Bupa - no upper age limit
• Freedom - 70 years old
• General & Medical - 75 years old
• National Friendly - 85 years old
• Saga - no upper age limit
• The Exeter - 80 years old
• Vitality - 80 years old‍
• WPA - strict joining criteria after 65th birthday

You can learn more about health insurance age limits in our dedicated guide.

All health insurance in the UK is designed to cover new, acute medical conditions that come on after taking out a policy. Basic policies will usually cover the cost of treatment in private hospitals once you are diagnosed, with more comprehensive policies including out-patient cover so that you can go private for diagnostic testing and consultations, too.

A note on cancer and mental health conditions

Both cancer and mental health conditions can share characteristics with both acute and chronic conditions. However, they are usually covered so long as you have the appropriate policy options.

While each insurer will have a list of exclusions, which is well worth looking at, the two exclusions of particular note are chronic and pre-existing medical conditions. Chronic conditions are those that require management and where a full recovery often isn't possible, for example diabetes and asthma.

Pre-existing conditions are things you've suffered from or sought treatment for in the past. With Moratorium underwriting, anything in the past five years will automatically be excluded, whereas with Full Medical Underwriting, your insurer will be more specific about your exclusions.

What our expert says:

"Underwriting is perhaps the most important consideration when taking out health insurance, especially if you're over 70 and have had previous health concerns. Choosing the best type of underwriting for you, can be the difference between having cover for specific conditions, and not."

‍Chris Steele - Editor and private health insurance expert

Our team of private healthcare and insurance experts regularly review the market of UK health insurance companies to help you better understand how they all compare. We look at policy benefits, limits and restrictions, costs and customer satisfaction to provide a balanced view of the private healthcare market.

In 2025, our top private health insurance providers for over 70s are:

Our latest 2025 research found that the average cost of private health insurance for a 70-year-old was £137 per month for a plan without outpatient cover and £201 with outpatient cover.

These prices are purely indicative and depending on where you live, your cover options and other factors your premiums could be higher or lower.

When you start looking at private health insurance cover there are several key considerations and decisions you'll need to make. Here we summarise some of the main ones to be mindful of, and to raise with your broker come the time you speak with one.

1. Underwriting method - as explained earlier, this is perhaps the most important consideration and one that's worth taking time to understand.
2. Hospital list or guided care - do you want almost free choice over your treatment options, or are you happy to be led by your insurer?
3. Level of cover vs. budget - your premiums will only rise as you get older, consider whether your policy will remain affordable and look at removing policy benefits if necessary.
4. Insurer reviews - many leading insurers have comparable policy benefits, but customer service and claims experience can be key differentiators.

Health insurance is a relatively complicated financial product, so we always recommend you speak with a health insurance broker or financial adviser before buying a policy and getting expert advice. They don't charge you for their service; you'll pay the same, and sometimes less than you would if you go direct to a provider, and you'll have an expert on hand to answer any questions you have. 

If you compare health insurance with myTribe, we'll introduce you to one of our highly-rated, fully vetted health insurance brokers. Each broker we work with is excellent, and we continually get glowing feedback from customers about them.