Rising treatment costs and your age set the direction; claims and plan options fill in the rest — and the renewal is still open to challenge.

What actually happens

A WPA renewal moves with the same forces as any private medical insurer. Age is the biggest lever: cover is priced older each year, and the step up is largest as you enter a new band. Medical inflation sits underneath it, because the private treatment the policy funds keeps getting more expensive and the premium is reset to match.

Then there is your own claims record and the pool you sit in. WPA operates on a not-for-profit basis, but it still has to cover the claims made, so a heavy claims year across members feeds through to renewals. Options you chose — the excess level, whether you took an NHS-wait style benefit — also shape the number.

As with every insurer, the FCA loyalty rules that stop home and motor insurers penalising existing customers do not apply to private medical insurance. WPA can quote a renewing member more than a new one for the same cover, so the renewal price deserves a second look rather than automatic acceptance.

Ask WPA what is driving the change and whether a higher excess or a guided treatment option would hold the premium down. Then compare the same cover elsewhere on a basis that keeps your existing conditions recognised, so any switch does not cost you the continuity you have earned.

Questions to put to the insurer or broker

  • What is behind this year's increase specifically?
  • Would a higher excess or an NHS-wait option reduce the premium materially?
  • How would equivalent cover elsewhere compare if I keep my existing exclusions?

Related questions

Sources

  • Source: WPA — Private Medical Insurance — Insurance Product Information Document (Complete Health) (2025-11), read 4 September 2026.

What a switch cannot change

Switching insurer or adjusting cover changes the price, not your medical history. A condition you already have stays excluded when you move — carried across as it stands on continued personal medical exclusions, re-declared under full medical underwriting, or parked under a fresh moratorium. Chronic conditions are excluded by every insurer whose wording we hold, and renewal terms change each year, so read the document you are actually offered before you commit.

Get a free quote — a specialist broker calls you back, free and with no obligation.

Or see how UK cover compares and the FCA-authorised broker list.