The Q2 2025 benchmarking report for UK health insurance providers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK health insurance providers perform across the digital space.

The latest Q2 2025 benchmarking report for UK health insurance providers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national health insurance providers, including  Bupa, Circle Health Group, Spire Healthcare, Nuffield Health, AXA UK, WPA Healthcare, Benenden Health, BHSF, Sovereign Healthcare, Vitality, Westfield Health, and HCA Healthcare UK. 

The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other health insurance providers to win brand exposure, increase online enquiries, and generate more policy sign-ups. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and will identify the barriers that may be reducing your ability to optimise digital performance. 

To see a preview and contents page of the Q2 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q2 2025 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 health insurance providers on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing health insurance providers, or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each retailer based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing.  Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.

For Q2 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK health insurance providers was £50,009, with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £218 . This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.

There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, both Circle Health Group and Spire Healthcare reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £11, and BHSF has the highest at £1,775.

The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, Sovereign Healthcare has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £2,850, and Vitality has the highest at £2,050,000.

By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.

Technical Website Compliance

Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. Health insurance providers will want to ensure prospective customers can easily access key pages, such as pricing information, policy coverage details, and plan comparisons.

In our last audit, AXA Health reported 313 404 errors. This quarter, AXA Health has reduced these errors to 40, and they’re now reporting the second highest number of alerts. Currently, the provider to watch is Vitality, with 210 404 errors. These errors can increase bounce rates, as visitors are more likely to abandon a website that directs them to inactive pages.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. For health insurance providers, they'll want to provide an excellent customer experience at every touchpoint, giving the impression of quick service from the moment a user steps virtual foot on their site.

In the last quarter, BHSF reported the slowest mobile site speed (5). This quarter, BHSF has increased their mobile site speed to 62, and this provider currently has the second fast mobile site speed. WPA Healthcare has the fast mobile site speed (67), and Nuffield Health has the slowest speed (25). Ideally, all companies should aim for a minimum of 50% for mobile site speed to help decrease bounce rates and increase conversions.

BUILDING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE WITH DOMAIN AUTHORITY

Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Health insurance companies should consider what topics they can cover that are most likely to be picked up by external sites and gain backlinks - something engaging with a digital PR specialist will help with.

A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. The DA this quarter ranged between 81 and 41, with Sovereign Healthcare reporting the lowest DA score. This UK health insurance provider should ensure they’re using every opportunity to increase the quantity and quality of their backlinks. This could involve guest blogging for reputable websites that have the same target audience.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. With growing concerns over NHS waiting times, and a need to access additional services, we'd expect to see some uplift within the private health insurance sector.

Three providers reported a decrease of organic traffic on desktop, with Westfield Health seeing the biggest loss (-3%). On mobile, 4 provides reported a decrease, with Westfield Health also seeing a -3% loss here. All providers should ensure they’re following a strategy to continually increase their organic traffic across all devices.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. Results such as 'people also ask' give health insurance providers the opportunity to answer queries from potential policyholders directly from the SERP, even if they aren't appearing in position one.

Bupa remains at the top of the leaderboard, with the most Universal Search appearances overall (133,300) — a huge increase from 20,070 in our previous audit. The majority of these results came from ‘people also ask’ (98,900), followed by ‘images’ (30,700).

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. For health insurance providers, they'll want to pay particular attention to phrases including high conversion intent terms, such as 'instant access', 'includes dentist', or potentially 'pre-existing condition coverage' (if this is something they can offer).

Bupa received the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (28,447) and positions 4–10 (69,492). Users searching with long-tail keywords are often closer to making a purchase decision, and these searchers tend to have clearer intent, which can translate to better leads and sales.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019.

We’ve included screenshots of Spire Healthcare’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK health insurance provider included a CTA for each post, encouraging social media users to visit their website.

Top Social Shares & Content

When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Health insurance providers can look to create content across the full breadth of health and lifestyle, a sector where content is widely shared as users turn to online sources to guide changes in eating, exercise, and other lifestyle habits.

Vitality has the most Facebook Likes (92,700) and the most Instagram followers (90,700). All health insurance providers should use social media tools to track their audience’s behaviour and monitor the following social media metrics: engagement rate, reach and impressions, follower growth, website clicks, and conversion rates. Without following these metrics, companies are unable to see what areas of their social media strategy needs work and what’s currently working.

Website Readability & Accessibility

20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Any website operating in the healthcare space must be particularly conscious of accessibility, from both a branding and potential customer perspective.

 In our previous audit, both Nuffield Health and Westfield Health reported the most accessibility alerts (163). This quarter, Nuffield Health has reduced their alerts to 15, and while Westfield Health is currently reporting the highest number of alerts (92), they’ve still reduced this figure from the previous quarter. Any progress made for this metric shows the brand is aware of how these alerts can be harmful for their website. 

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q2 2025 REPORT

To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Rory Tarplee.