Nearly one in eight Britons now has personal medical insurance coverage, say healthcare analysts | Non-public healthcare

Nearly one in eight Britons now has medical insurance coverage – the very best proportion since 2008 – with NHS care delays driving an increase in folks utilizing personal healthcare.

The variety of folks coated by a personal medical insurance coverage coverage hit a file excessive of 4.68 million on the finish of 2023, based on personal healthcare analysts LaingBuisson.

Eight million folks within the UK can now entry personal healthcare utilizing insurance coverage, as soon as the spouses, companions and youngsters of policyholders are included. That represents 11.8% of the UK’s 68.3 million inhabitants, the very best share since 12.3% in 2008 – earlier than the monetary crash prompted a fall in corporations paying for personal medical cowl for his or her employees and people choosing it.

4 out of 5 of the 4.9 million policyholders – 3.8 million folks – have been coated by a coverage their employer had taken out, whereas the remainder had taken out insurance policies as people.

The current surge in the usage of personal healthcare signifies that the whole worth of all medical and dental cowl reached a file £7.59bn by the top of 2023, up from £6.76bn the yr earlier than.

Tim Learn, LaingBuisson’s head of analysis and creator of the report on the UK medical insurance market, mentioned: “The rise in folks coated by medical insurance is being pushed by each an increase within the variety of firms taking out insurance coverage on behalf of their staff, however there has additionally been an increase within the variety of people taking out their very own insurance policies.

“Given we’ve seen folks’s satisfaction with the NHS plummeting in recent times, and in addition continued challenges in accessing each diagnostic and therapy providers on the NHS, this rise isn’t a shock.

“Previously folks might have taken out medical insurance as a result of it supplied a greater high quality of service than the NHS. However now they worth well timed entry extra extremely and more and more are prepared to pay for it.”

Non-public medical cowl accounted for £6.15bn of the £7.59bn whole market worth – up 12.2% on a yr earlier. The remainder of that was made up of individuals spending £1.05bn on dental insurance coverage – the primary time that had crossed the £1bn threshold – and £435m on well being money plans, which generally value £150 to £200 a yr and supply entry to non-public GPs and personal diagnostic providers, however not therapy.

4 massive insurance coverage corporations – Aviva, AXA Well being, Bupa and Vitality Well being – have 95% of the personal medical insurance coverage market between them, LaingBuisson mentioned.