Bupa vs Vitality health insurance: What are the main differences in 2025?

Bupa, the market-leading household name, has two consumer-facing health insurance products: Treatment and Care and Comprehensive, both grouped under the name Bupa By You. The main difference between them is outpatient cover and benefits: Treatment and Care doesn’t cover the cost of seeing consultants and being diagnosed as an outpatient, whereas Comprehensive does.

Vitality, meanwhile, also a well-known brand in the UK market, has a single policy for consumers: Personal Healthcare. The core Personal Healthcare product doesn’t include outpatient cover by default, but you can add it as an optional extra.

On the face of it, the result is similar: with Bupa, outpatient cover comes with Comprehensive as standard; with Vitality, it can be added as an option. 

“So, they’re pretty much the same, right?”

No - let’s keep going, and we’ll show you how different they actually are.

Most UK health insurance providers have a “core” product with options to extend or reduce your cover. Bupa and Vitality are no different, even if how they do it isn’t identical. 

The table below highlights the key differences between the core cover provided by Bupa’s two tiers and Vitality’s Personal Healthcare.

Similar benefits, different packaging

As you can see, neither Bupa nor Vitality completely excludes any of the benefits we’ve listed. Yes, there are caveats and options, but with both, you can get cover for everything we’ve mentioned one way or another. So from a high-level, again both providers seem similar. 

Scratching beneath the surface of the “core products” from Bupa and Vitality

An often pivotal reason why people get private medical insurance is cover for cancer treatment, so it’s worth taking a look at how Bupa and Vitality do things, so we can see if one is inherently better than the other. 

Firstly, and to remove some options to make the comparison clearer, we’ll assume that we are weighing up Vitality’s “Advanced Cancer Care”, which comes as standard with Personal Healthcare policies, with Bupa’s optional “Full Cancer Cover”.

Something to flag straight away is that, despite the names of the insurers’ cancer cover being “Advanced” and “Full” Cancer Care/Cover, unless you opt for outpatient cover, you’ll need to be diagnosed before you can claim for treatment. This is no different from most other insurers, but the names Bupa and Vitality have chosen could give you the wrong end of the stick.

Both Bupa and Vitality offer extensive treatment options for cancer. In truth, there’s very little between the two, and it would be unfair to say one is inherently better than the other, as from our perspective, they both look solid.

The only minor differences to highlight are:

• Bupa explicitly says in its terms and conditions that it will cover the cost of experimental unlicensed treatments, so long as a fairly long list of pre-requisites are met. Vitality on the other hand, isn’t as definitive in its terms and conditions, saying “in certain circumstances, we may be able to cover some of the cost of certain treatments outside of their license”.
• Vitality is more generous when it comes to things like wigs and hairpieces that may be needed following treatment that causes hair loss. Vitality will pay £300 towards wigs and the restyling of wigs per conditions, whereas Bupa will only pay £100.

The differences aren’t huge, and we would expect that no one will choose one over the other based on these minor differences, but it’s good to know where you stand in any case.

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To highlight the biggest differences between Bupa and Vitality, we looked well beyond the headline marketing claims and delved into the fine print of their policies. Our review covered more than 100 pages of documentation across 15 separate guides and benefit tables, analysing 10+ core benefit categories, multiple optional extras, and over 30 exclusions. 

This detailed approach means the comparisons you’ll see here aren’t based on summaries, but on a line-by-line review of how each insurer actually structures cover.\

You can jump to the Bupa vs Vitality differences that are most important to you by clicking on the relevant links below:

1. Bupa and Vitality use different models to calculate renewal premiums
2. How Bupa’s and Vitality’s outpatient limits and allowances work
3. Bupa’s mental health cover stands out
4. Bupa and Vitality take different approaches to your NHS cash benefits
5. Vitality includes physiotherapy in its core product
6. Bupa lets you join at any age, but Vitality has some unique family benefits

Both Bupa and Vitality reward customers who don’t claim, but they go about it in very different ways.

Bupa By You uses a traditional no claims discount (NCD). Each person on the policy has their own discount, starting at level 12 of 14 (65% off). If you don’t claim, you move up the scale and receive a bigger discount at renewal, up to a maximum of 70%. This doesn’t usually mean your overall premium goes down, since medical inflation and age push costs up, but the larger discount can help soften the increase.

Vitality Personal Healthcare, on the other hand, works on what they call the ABC model: Age, Base inflation, and Claims. The “Claims” element is linked to your Vitality Status (Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum), which reflects how much you engage with their wellbeing programme. The more active and engaged you are, the higher your status - and the better your discount at renewal.

How Bupa and Vitality renewal approaches differ in practice

On an individual level, it’s hard to say which approach is “better.” It often comes down to whether you’d actively participate in Vitality’s programme or prefer the simplicity of Bupa’s NCD.

Where Bupa tends to have the edge is when you add more people to the plan:

• Bupa’s NCD is individual. One person’s claim only affects their own discount, not anyone else’s.
• Vitality’s system is group-based. The claims of each person affect the overall renewal price for all members on the policy.

When you add a second adult to a Vitality plan, the claim thresholds that trigger price changes do increase, but the claims activity of both adults still affects the overall cost. You could see this as either a positive or a negative, but let’s move on to what happens when there are more than two people on the plan.

Three or more people on a Vitality plan introduces a new risk

When you have three or more people on a Vitality Personal Healthcare plan, the claims thresholds that affect your discount don’t change. They stay at the same level as they would be for two adults. This means you now have more people, and therefore a higher chance of claiming, but no increase in the threshold that triggers changes to your discount.

Example of how Bupa and Vitality renewal models can affect families

A couple in their fifties with a 13-year-old child have a Vitality Personal Healthcare plan. The adults’ cover makes up the bulk of the annual premium, at least 85%, maybe more. If the child claims, it doesn’t just affect their share; it changes the discount for everyone, including the more expensive adults who haven’t claimed. With Bupa, that same claim would only reduce the child’s NCD, barely moving the needle on the overall premium.

Both Bupa and Vitality offer outpatient cover, but the way they structure limits and allowances is very different. With Bupa, outpatient cover is only available if you choose its Comprehensive plan, while with Vitality you can add it as an optional extra.

Bupa gives you a choice of limits - No limit, £1,000, £750 or £500 per person, per year. 

Vitality offers a wider range - Unlimited, £1,500, £1,250, £1,000, £750 or £500. It also lets you separate consultations from diagnostic tests, with the option to add full cover for outpatient diagnostics alongside your chosen limit.

At first glance, the two insurers’ options may look similar, but once you scratch beneath the surface, the way allowances work and are applied to different treatments varies quite dramatically.

The impact of Bupa’s and Vitality’s approaches to outpatient benefits

The most important difference is how much each insurer expects your outpatient allowance to cover. With Bupa, once you apply an outpatient limit, a wide range of treatment types draw from it - consultations, diagnostic tests, physiotherapy, mental health and complementary therapies. 

Vitality takes a more flexible approach. Most treatment types either have their own separate options, or don’t draw on your outpatient allowance at all. For example, physiotherapy is covered in full within Vitality's network, while mental health and complementary therapies are available as standalone add-ons. You also have the option to upgrade to full cover for outpatient diagnostic tests, further reducing the strain on your outpatient allowance.

In practice, this means that Vitality's allowance could go much further than Bupa’s. 

Bupa and Vitality differ significantly in their mental health cover options. Both include some cover within their base products, with the option to extend it. But how they structure those options and the impact on members is quite different.

Bupa includes mental health cover as standard on both its Treatment and Care and Comprehensive plans. The key difference is that Comprehensive includes outpatient mental health treatment, while Treatment and Care does not. Bupa also offers a range of mental health support services, such as a family mental health helpline.

Vitality, by contrast, includes up to eight self-referred Talking Therapy sessions for all members. These cover therapies like CBT or counselling, arranged through Vitality’s mental health panel. Members can then add Mental Health Cover for access to broader treatment. In addition, Vitality provides digital resources such as a 12-month subscription to the mindfulness app Headspace.

At a headline level, both insurers’ resources and support services look strong, but there are key differences to be aware of.

Bupa covers more mental health conditions, and for longer

Bupa stands out by covering more mental health conditions than most insurers, including alcohol and substance misuse. It also promises not to withdraw cover when conditions require long-term treatment. This commitment helps protect members from suddenly losing cover when they may need it most.

Vitality, in line with most of the market, takes a stricter approach. Its terms allow mental health conditions requiring long-term treatment to be reclassified as chronic, at which point cover is withdrawn. Vitality doesn’t specify exactly when this might happen, leaving members uncertain until the decision is made. If cover is withdrawn, the member would either have to self-fund treatment or rely on the NHS, and no other insurer would cover the condition as it would be classed as pre-existing.

Vitality provides talking therapies available to all after three months

Vitality includes eight talking therapy sessions per person each year as part of its Core Cover, and this applies to children on the plan too. You don’t need a GP referral - sessions can be arranged directly through the Vitality GP app or Care Hub with one of their panel therapists.

Importantly, once you’ve been a member for three months, most exclusions and pre-existing conditions don’t apply to these sessions. The only caveat is that treatment must be helping to improve the condition, not just control symptoms.

When you get a health insurance policy, it’ll usually come with cash benefits, which are best described as cashback for specific treatments or healthcare services.

An NHS cash benefit is one of those, which will mean if you decide to use the NHS for treatment that you could have claimed and gone private for, your insurer will pay you a set amount of money. Think of it like a bonus for not claiming, which has the added advantage of not affecting your renewal premium either. 

While the principle of what Bupa and Vitality offer is the same, the approach they take with NHS cash benefits is quite different.

Vitality pays more for general NHS treatment, including day-patient treatments

Vitality pays substantially more for general NHS treatment that would otherwise be covered by your policy: £250 per night for inpatient care (£2,000 limit), and £125 a day for day-patient treatment (£500 limit). Bupa, by contrast, pays £50 per night (£1,750 limit) for inpatient stays and nothing for day-patient treatment. In practice, this means that if you need shorter-term hospital care, perhaps just a few days or even a single day, you’ll receive more from Vitality than Bupa.

Vitality limits NHS cancer cash to £10,000, Bupa doesn’t state a limit

Vitality sets a clear £10,000 per year cap on NHS cancer cash benefits. Bupa’s terms are less explicit, with payments tied to the specifics of your plan and the length of treatment. It may be that Bupa does apply a limit, but equally, it could extend further and, in some cases, pay more overall. If this is important to you, it’s worth checking your policy documents, speaking directly to Bupa, or consulting a broker for clarity. 

A significant benefit of Vitality Personal Healthcare is that all members, regardless of whether they have outpatient cover, get up to six self-referred physiotherapy sessions each policy year. These are only available within Vitality's network of providers, but still, for those who are active and occasionally pick up a knock, it’s a great inclusion. 

Vialtity includes six self-referred physiotherapy sessions within its core product for each member on the policy. The only stipulation is that those sessions take place within its network of providers. If you want additional cover, then simply adding any amount of outpatient cover to your plan unlocks unlimited physiotherapy appointments, a remarkably generous benefit. 

The only consideration you may have is how close the nearest physio within Vitality’s network is to you. For physiotherapy outside of its network, you’ll need outpatient cover, and Vitality limits the amount they’ll pay to just £35 per session, which is relatively modest based on research we’ve done. 

With Bupa on the other hand, to see a physiotherapist as an outpatient, bar some you might receive after hospital treatment, you’ll need some outpatient cover. If you opt to include an outpatient limit, outpatient physio fees will count towards it.

Bupa and Vitality have different rules around who can join their policies and how dependants are treated, so if you have a family, this section is important for you.

Vitality’s claims thresholds don’t grow with your family

With Vitality, claims thresholds that impact renewal premiums stay the same once you go above two people, so you’re effectively loading additional risk of premium rises for everyone on the plan as you add more people. The larger your family, the further those thresholds need to go.

Bupa is more family-friendly in this respect: each person has their own no-claims discount, a child’s claims don’t affect an adult’s premium, you get a 10% family discount, and you need only pay for your eldest child.

Over 79? You can’t join Vitality

Vitality won’t accept new members over 79 and limits children to joining before 25. Bupa has no upper age limit and will allow dependents of any age to join, making it more inclusive for older adults and families with grown-up children.

Vitality’s unique benefits for children

Although Vitality’s pricing model may potentially deter some families, it actually has some very nice child focused benefits that Bupa doesn’t. It pays a £100 childbirth/adoption cash benefit, adds newborns on a Medical History Disregarded basis (if the parent has been covered for 10 months), and uniquely covers some corrective surgeries for young people, such as ear reshaping or removing port wine birthmarks from the face, with a 25% co-payment. Parents can use the Vitality GP app to book appointments for their child from the age of one.

Bupa has several family-focused benefits to offer, too

Bupa, on the other hand, covers parent accommodation for hospitalised children up to age 17 (versus 14 with Vitality), and its Family Mental HealthLine is available to parents or carers even if the child isn’t on the policy. Bupa also covers mental health symptoms (like anxiety or depression) linked to otherwise excluded conditions such as ADHD or autism - something Vitality excludes.

How much a Bupa By You or Vitality Personal Healthcare plan costs depends on several factors, including your age and where you live. The cover options you choose, the limits you set, and your excess will also affect the premium.

To provide a meaningful example, our researchers obtained hundreds of quotes from both insurers for people of different ages, living in towns and cities across the UK.

For both providers we selected:

• £1,000 outpatient cover limit
• £250 excess
• Guided consultants
• Moratorium underwriting

Disclaimer: These figures are averages based on many sample quotes. They are for comparison only and will not match the price you are personally quoted.

Bupa is consistently cheaper for younger adults

Across all the ages we sampled (except 70), Bupa’s average prices were lower than Vitality’s. The biggest gaps appear at younger ages - at age 20, Vitality is around 45% more expensive, and at 40 the difference is still about 17%.

From age 50 onwards, the price gap almost disappears, with only small, single-digit differences. By age 70, the tables turn slightly, and Vitality comes out just under 1% cheaper than Bupa.

The impact of your postcode on Bupa’s and Vitality’s prices

Our research covered 23 major towns and cities around the UK to present a comprehensive overview of how much private health insurance costs in 2025. Digging into it, we see that the overall trend of Bupa being cheaper isn't consistent; it’s postcode-dependent.

Looking at all ages (20–70), Bupa’s average premium was lower in 15 of the 23 locations. This was especially true in Manchester, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Reading and Leeds, where Vitality was 25-42% more expensive.

There are also pockets where Vitality undercuts Bupa - most notably Nottingham, Newcastle, Exeter, Leicester and Newquay, where it was 6–17% cheaper.

Across most postcodes, the age-related trend we see nationally still holds: Bupa is significantly less expensive for younger adults, the gap narrows at middle age, and by 70 the two providers are almost level. However, when we average prices across all ages in each city, Vitality is cheaper in 8 of the 23 locations. So while age drives the overall pricing pattern, postcode can tip the balance and swing the cheaper option the other way.

We hope this article has helped highlight some of the key differences between Bupa and Vitality. But remember, this is still a general comparison. The best insurer for you - whether it’s one of these two or another provider entirely - will depend on your own circumstances and preferences.

Private health insurance is a complex product, and it’s easy to overlook important details that could affect you later. That’s why we always recommend speaking to an experienced health insurance broker before making a decision.

If you’d like a tailored comparison quote and some expert advice, click here and we’ll arrange for a highly-rated broker to get in touch.