The Fairer Finance Trust in Private Medical Insurance Index - Spring 2025

Trust in Private Medical Insurance has stopped growing: what’s driving this? 

Trust in Private Medical Insurance (PMI) has fallen for the first time since Fairer Finance started polling customers in Spring 2023.

Fairer Finance has polled over 10,000 PMI customers and they have revealed that the trend of improving trust has come to an end. The Spring 2025 polling revealed a small drop in trust scores compared with Autumn 2024, falling 0.74p.p to 57.83%. Every previous poll had shown improving consumer trust, with scores at approximately 56% in Spring 2023. 

Claims satisfaction

Although trust scores fell slightly in Spring 2025, claim satisfaction scores continued to rise. Average scores this time were up by approximately 1p.p from the previous wave to reach 61.9%. This suggests that providers are continuing to improve the quality of their claims process and service. WPA had the highest claim satisfaction score at 73% this wave while Freedom Health Insurance, Bupa and AXA Health also scored above average. The Fairer Finance claims satisfaction score is based off responses to the question below.

‘If you've made a health insurance claim with your current provider in the last 3 years, how satisfied were you? You should think about all factors including the customer service you received, the ease of making the claim and the speed it was dealt with’

Respondents who have made a claim answer on a 5 point scale from very satisfied to very dissatisfied. We take the percentage of negative responses away from the percentage of positive responses, with the extreme options double weighted. We divide this by two to give a score from -100% to 100%. 

Trust by Age of Customer

Interestingly the change in Trust is trending differently depending on the age of the customer. In Autumn 2024 our polling showed that trust in PMI declined as customers got older, perhaps unsurprising given that premiums rise as people get older. 

However, this pattern has changed in Spring 2025. Trust scores actually increased for both the youngest cohort of customers (18-30) and the oldest (65+), but decreased for those in between (31-45 and 46-64). This means that trust scores are now slightly higher for those aged over 65 than those in the 46-64 age bracket. It was the 46-64 age group that saw the biggest decline in trust scores between Autumn 2024 and Spring 2025, falling by almost 2p.p. 

The percentage of people in the 46-64 age category who strongly trusted their PMI provider fell by over 1p.p, while the proportion of those with neutral or negative feelings increased by almost 2p.p. More and more people are opting to buy PMI and it may be that most of these new customers fall into the 31-45 and 46-64 age categories. People of these ages are more likely to be able to afford PMI, but may also be starting to experience more health problems, leading to increased premiums. This is especially likely if longer NHS waiting times are driving the increase in PMI customers. Somebody who has an existing health condition may buy coverage for this reason only to find out that pre-existing conditions are not covered, or they have to pay a large premium because of that. 

Trust by Time

Trust is generally higher for customers who have held their policy longer, although this isn’t a linear relationship. The lowest trust scores are with those who have held the policy for less than a year, but those who have held it for 2-5 years or 5-10 years tend to trust their providers more than those who have had a policy for over 10 years. 

Trust by Brand

WPA and Freedom Health Insurance sit at the top of the trust scores in the PMI sector. WPA  had the highest trust score in Spring 2025 after an improvement of 3.6p.p from Autumn 2024. They were helped to the top spot by Freedom health falling 2.5p.p. At the other end of the sector SAGA’s trust score fell by almost 7p.p to 46.9%.