UK businesses and individuals spent £9.5 billion in private medical insurance in 2025, the highest level since records began and up from £9.2 billion in 2024, says Bowmore Financial Planning*.
Spending on private medical insurance has increased 50% since the pandemic, from £6.3 billion, after Covid disruption led a sharp increase in NHS waiting times. This has prompted more large companies to pay for private medical insurance to improve their offering to prospective or existing employees by helping them avoid long NHS waiting times.
The median waiting time to see an NHS specialist rose 78% to 13.2 weeks in February 2026, up from 7.5 weeks in February 2020**.
Gill Millen, Managing Director and Head of Corporate Benefits at Bowmore Financial Planning, says: “Large businesses understand that to attract and retain the best people they must offer private medical insurance to reduce the heavy toll NHS delays have on their employees.”
Small businesses hold back on PMI because they wrongly assume is too expensive
Most small businesses hold back from offering private medical insurance despite the far greater impact NHS delays can have on their businesses. Gill Millen says many small businesses wrongly assume the costs are too high for them.
Gill Millen says: “The cost of having people out of work because they can’t access treatment can hit smaller firms much harder as many rely on very few employees to run the business. Having just one employee absent in a small company can seriously dent productivity and the bottom line.”
A previous study by Bowmore found that the 150 million sick days taken by UK workers last year, cost businesses £11.8 billion in lost profits**. These absences cost small businesses and organisations with fewer than 50 employees £5.6 billion.
Gill Millen adds: “Small businesses must really consider offering private medical insurance to their employees, as it will cut the long waiting times for those smalls numbers of staff that keep their businesses running. In the end, it can prove even better value for money than for larger companies, as reducing staff absence can have a disproportionate impact on profits at a smaller company.”
ONS data shows the working population spent 2.93 months waiting for hospital treatment for non-emergency conditions in the latest year of available data***.
UK businesses and individuals spent a record £10 billion in private medical insurance in 2025 (£bn)
* Source: ONS UK Health Accounts dataset, published on 29 April 2026.
** Source: Research based on the NHS report “Consultant-led Referral to Treatment Waiting Times Data 2025-26”, updated with figures for February 2026
*** Research conducted by Bowmore based on ONS report “Sickness absence in the UK labour market: 2025.”, published May 1 2026, and “Keep Britain Working: Final report”.
**** Source: ONS report “Age standardised average monthly pay and percentage of people in paid employment by treatment specialty and number of months to and since first outpatient appointment.”
