Vitality private health insurance cost - 2024 Pricing Guide

Disclaimer

The private medical insurance pricing included in this guide is meant only as an example. Quotes were obtained in June 2024, using fictional information as part of our frequent research into the UK's average cost of private health insurance. To see our full methodology for our Vitality research, click here.

While Vitality is one of the leading insurers in the UK, there may be a better fit for you. Before committing to a single insurer, we strongly recommend that you compare health insurance quotes. If you'd like to know more about how the insurers stack up against each other, please read our guide to the top 9 private health insurance companies, which includes details of their strengths and weaknesses.

Health insurance can be broadly divided into two types: with and without out-patient cover. For our research, we obtained quotes for both, looking at Vitality's Core Cover with no additional options, and what it costs when out-patient and therapies covers are added.

The table below shows the key differences between our configured private health insurance plans. Please note that this is a simple summary; for further details, you should read our guide to Vitality health insurance or visit their website.

*Out-patient cover limited to £1,000 per policy year.

A huge factor in determining the cost of your private health insurance with Vitality or any other insurer is your age, so this section of our guide breaks down what you can roughly expect for a new policy based on how many years you have under your belt.

As shown in the table below, and is to be expected, the cost of Vitality private health insurance rises with age.

Chris Steele, founder of myTribe explains:

"Unlike many leading private medical insurance providers, Vitality has a fixed mimimum plan price, which is around £44 per month. That means the price for a 20-year-old is almost always that amount regardless of the options that you add, with it only starting to edge up for 30-year-olds in some locations and as you choose extras, even 40-year-olds with Core Cover (no out-patient- cover) will be charged around £44 per month. Remember, these aren't health insurance renewal premiums; if you claim or don't keep active, you may see higher prices at renewal.

From the age of 50, prices start to diverge more from the minimum cost, and as we'll explain a little later, there's more variation based on your location."

Looking at overall averages, including all ages, locations and plan types, Vitality is slightly below the average of the eight health insurance providers we sampled. If you've had a clean health bill in the past three years, you'll also potentially benefit from Vitality's "Mori Plus" underwriting, seeing another 10% reduction in health insurance premiums.

The chart below shows how Vitality fares against other leading insurers; as you can see, while their pricing is a bit higher than most for younger adults, the competitiveness improves with age.

Vitality isn't the cheapest for young adults (but they could be with their discounts and rewards)

While Vitality health insurance is well priced, especially once you turn 40, it is one of the most expensive for young adults. But, and it's a big but, they give you up to 50% off gym membership at their partner gyms, meaning that if you're a regular gym goer, the actual cost of having Vitality health insurance could be much lower.

Vitality's current partner gyms (those you can get a discount at) are:

• Nuffield Health
• Virgin Active
• PureGym

Here's a full list of Vitality's current gym partners.

In short, yes. Once you get past Vitality's minimum price, where you live will play a significant role in setting your health insurance premiums. Also, if you live somewhere without a nearby "partner gym", that benefit will be somewhat redundant!

How Vitality is priced in different locations

Our researchers gathered pricing from ten significant towns and cities around the UK, enabling us to show where prices are high and low. Given that this is only ten locations, we should remind you to take this with a healthy pinch of salt.

The chart below compares the average cost of Vitality health insurance in the ten towns and cities we sampled, against the national average of £74.55 per month.

Edinburgh is the cheapest place we sampled, with London surprisingly affordable too.

As the chart shows, Edinburgh is a clear winner, coming in at 34.6% below the national average. What's very interesting and quite unusual is that London, a hotspot for private healthcare with typically higher medical treatment costs than elsewhere, comes in just below the national average at -1.9%. 🤔

Manchester and Bournemouth are the most expensive locations.

Manchester came out as the most expensive place to get Vitality health insurance, with an average premium of 13.4% higher than the national average. Manchester's pricy status isn't a huge surprise; however, what has surprised us is the premium being paid in Bournemouth, where Vitality's headquarters is

If you get Vitality health insurance and live in Bournemouth, you'll typically pay around 10.5% more than the national average, making it the second most expensive location we sampled. What's strange about this is that Vitality's headquarters is in Bournemouth; they sponsor the local football stadium and have a significant presence there.

Bear in mind pricing for young people is pretty consistent.

The location-based differences we highlight above are skewed by Vitality's minimum pricing of £44 per month. Looking at the health insurance premiums for people over 50, the pricing variation based on location is more significant but follows the same trends we've outlined.

How much does Vitality cost for couples and families?

We've not collected as much data for couples and families, but if there is demand for it, we may do so in the future. For now, we've got pricing from Vitality based on a single location in the UK: Cardiff. Our research for individual policies showed that Cardiff was the closest to the national average price.

In this section, we've looked at the cost of Vitality health insurance for a couple. To keep things simple, we've based the quotes on both individuals being the same age, but that will be a rare occurrence in the real world.

From our research, while there are some slight price discrepancies, we don't think Vitality offers a discount for couples.

DISCLAIMER—The pricing provided is merely an example; for many reasons, your price will differ. Please request a comparison quote to find out how much private medical insurance would cost for you and your partner.

In this section, we've examined the cost of Vitality health insurance for a family of three. For this article, we told Vitality that the adults were always the same age as each other and that the child's age was fixed at ten, bar for the 20-year-old couple, where we changed the child's age to one.

We received these figures from Vitality for a policy with £1,000 of out-patient cover and an excess of £250 for applicants living in Cardiff.

DISCLAIMER - The pricing provided is an example; your price will differ for many reasons. Please request a comparison quote to find out how much private medical insurance would cost for your family.

How much does Vitality cost for a family of four?

In this section, we've looked at the cost of Vitality health insurance for a family of 4. For this article, we told Vitality that the adults were always the same age as each other, and the children's ages were fixed at ten years old.

Disclaimer: The pricing provided is an example; your price will differ for many reasons. Please request a comparison quote to find out how much private medical insurance would cost for your family.

Okay, so this guide has focused on the cost of a new policy, which, while useful for first-time buyers and those looking at potentially changing insurers, isn't indicative of what you'll be paying when your renewals come through.

With Vitality, they use a unique A B C formula to calculate your renewal premiums:

A = Age

B = Base inflation

C = Claims and Engagement

Age is self-explanatory; as our research shows, the older you are, the more your health insurance will cost. Base inflation, again, is relatively simple: As the cost of private medical treatment, drugs, and hospital services goes up, so do your renewal premiums.

Finally, and uniquely to Vitality, who offer a no-claims discount, your renewal premiums will be affected by your claims in the past year and how active you've been. By tracking your physical activity and healthy habits, you can earn discounts on your health insurance, with the theory being you're less likely to claim if you're looking after yourself.

So, keep fit and healthy and minimise claims; you'll save money. But, conversely, if you don't stay active and need to claim, your premiums will rise proportionally.

Many factors will affect the cost of your policy, be that with Vitality or another leading provider. You'll have control over some aspects, such as the level of cover you opt for, whereas others you won't, such as your age! Here are just some of the things that will affect the cost of your policy:

• Where you live - London hospitals and those in other major cities charge higher treatment fees, so your medical insurance will likely cost more if you live in one.
• Your age - it's no secret that we become more susceptible to illness as we age; thus, the older you are, the more you will pay for health insurance.
• Level of cover - Like all of the best health insurers, Vitality will let you configure your policy to suit your requirements and budget. 
• Excess - the amount you offer to contribute each time you claim will affect your monthly premiums. 
• Consultants - with all top policies, you can let the insurer select who will treat you or have the freedom to choose yourself. The latter, as you might expect, costs more.
• No claims discount - if you already have health insurance and haven't made a claim recently, you'll receive a no-claims discount, reducing the cost of your Vitality policy.
• Therapies - chiropractic treatment, osteopathy, chiropody/podiatry, acupuncture, homoeopathy and dietitian consultations are all therapies that won't be included as standard. You can opt to have Therapies cover, which will provide access to the above, but of course, you will pay more for your policy.
• Mental health cover - while your policy will include a certain amount of mental health support, you also have the option to extend it.
• Optical, Dental, and Hearing Cover—This optional extra helps you cover the costs of routine check-ups and preventative care. It will cost you more to include it.
• Dental cover—You can choose between two levels of this optional additional Cover: Major Dental Treatments, which covers some of the most significant dental work, or Major and Routing Dental Treatments, which goes further and will protect you for more.
• Your hospital list—Vitality offers three hospital lists to choose from local, Country-wide, and London Care. The cost of your premiums will depend on which you choose.
• The cost of treatments - Vitality relies on a network of private hospitals, clinics and consultants to deliver care to its members, all subject to their running costs. Over time, the price of private healthcare treatment tends to rise, and with that general shift comes higher policy premiums. 
• Your medical history - depending on your choice of underwriting, your medical history may play a role in the cost of your insurance policy. Full Medical Underwriting, rather than Moratorium Underwriting, will look at prior conditions before taking out a policy. There are some advantages of Full Medical Underwriting, namely, you get more clarity over what is covered.

Why it pays to speak to a private medical insurance broker to find the best policy

As we said at the start of this section, you will have control over some of the above, whereas you won't with others. We always say you need to speak to an independent health insurance broker about your requirements so that you can configure the right policy for you.

One provider, such as Vitality, is often great for certain circumstances but could be better in others. Only by working closely with a broker can you ensure that you find the best deal and, importantly, get the level of cover you want from your policy.

A note on "Consultant Select"

Consultant Select is Vitality's name for what is commonly known as guided consultants. In effect, you agree to be restricted to a smaller pool of medical consultants in return for lower premiums. Based on our experience and research, you can save around 20% by opting for guided consultants. However, it should be noted that by doing so, you limit your access to specialists and may find that you need to wait longer for treatment. This isn't unique to Vitality; Bupa, Axa Health, Saga, The Exeter and Aviva offer the same. However, some smaller providers, namely WPA, Freedom and National Friendly, only offer non-guided consultant access.

Therefore, when comparing prices, you must understand whether the prices you're comparing restrict your access to consultants. This, among many other things, is a good reason to speak to a health insurance broker.

Read more about guided consultant lists and health insurance here.

Health insurance is a complicated product that can be configured in may ways and because of that, getting a meaningful average is tricky. For our research into Vitality's health insurance costs, we had to configure policies based on what we believe are "typical", but please note that strictly speaking, there isn't such a thing as a typical policy and yours will be different, as will be price.

Our data sample

Most of our research focused on the cost of an individual policy from Vitality, albeit we have also looked at the cost for families too. For individuals, we obtained pricing for applicants of the following ages: 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 years old. 

For families, both adults were the same age, with the children being 10 years old.

For each of those ages, we obtained quotations from 10 towns and cities around the UK: Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester, and Oxford.

We received quotes from Vitality for two health insurance cover configurations, the first without out-patient cover, and the second with out-patient cover, limited to £1,000 per policy year. For both of these configurations, we collected pricing for Vitality's Personal Healthcare with standard moratorium underwriting, and their Mori Plus underwriting, which gives you a 10% discount if you've not had medical concerns in the three years before taking out a policy.

Private medical insurance quote configuration

We created two private medical insurance plans which we felt were typical as outlined below:

• The entry-level policy was configured with no additional out-patient cover or therapies cover.
• The comprehensive policy included out-patient cover, limited to a maximum of £1,000 a year, we also included therapies cover with this policy.
• The policy excess was set at £250
• We excluded mental health cover
• We opted for a guided consultant list
• We excluded dental, optical and travel cover.
• The policies were to be underwritten on a moratorium basis with us also obtaining pricing for mori plus