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Health · a live data story

Health Insurance,
according to AI

Every week we ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions real UK consumers ask about health insurance — and record exactly which brands they put forward. Right now, Bupa owns the conversation.

0 AI answers this run · 0 brands named · measured, never estimated

The podium

Bupa is the default answer.

Named in 40% of health insurance answers, typically in position 1.7. Aviva follows at 32%, AXA at 25%.

Aviva
32% of answers
Bupa
40% of answers
AXA
25% of answers
The full board

Every brand AI names, ranked.

Visibility is the share of answers naming the brand; citation share is its slice of all brand-owned pages cited; read→cited is how often its pages convert a read into a citation.

#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Bupa 40% 1.7 34% 18%
2Aviva 32% 2.5 14% 17%
3AXA 25% 1.9 6% 40%
4Vitality 23% 2.6 23% 43%
5The Exeter 7% 5.0 0% 0%
6WPA 5% 4.7 6% 50%
7Allianz Care 2% 3.0 6% 67%
8Freedom Healthinsurance 2% 4.0 6% 50%
9MediCash 2% 6.0 0%
10Saga 2% 6.0 3%
11BHSF 2% 7.0 0%
12General & Medical 2% 8.0 0%
13Now Health International 0% 0% 0%
14Post Office 0% 3% 0%
15Zurich 0% 0% 0%
What AI searched for first

Before it answers, it goes looking for AXA.

An assistant does not answer from memory alone. It runs its own web searches first, and whoever it searches for is the shortlist it then chooses from. Across 89 searches in health insurance, AXA is named in 33% of the ones that name a brand at all. ChatGPT Web does not report its searches, so these shares are measured against the ones that do.

AXA 33%
Bupa 33%
Aviva 25%
Vitality 8%
Claude
Searches per question1.7
Names a brand0%
Names a year17%
Goes to a site0%
Gemini
Searches per question2
Names a brand10%
Names a year5%
Goes to a site0%
ChatGPT
Searches per question1
Names a brand5%
Names a year25%
Goes to a site40%
UK individual private health insurance comprehensive cover providers 2026 Bupa AXA Aviva Vitality official
ChatGPT
UK private health insurance reduce premiums couples excess outpatient cover no claims discount MoneyHelper
ChatGPT
UK private medical insurance add newborn baby existing family policy insurer newborn notification period
ChatGPT
site:moneyhelper.org.uk private medical insurance couples joint policy pre-existing conditions excess
ChatGPT

These are the assistants' own searches, read from their answers — not what anyone typed into a search engine.

Who AI trusts here

The referees of health insurance.

The independent sources AI models cite when answering health insurance questions — the places a brand needs to be seen, reviewed and ranked.

wecovr.com 44 cites
goingprivateuk.co.uk 24 cites
moneyhelper.org.uk 17 cites
mytribeinsurance.co.uk 12 cites
nhs.uk 10 cites
simpleprotection.co.uk 10 cites
which.co.uk 10 cites
abi.org.uk 8 cites
drewberryinsurance.co.uk 8 cites
forbes.com 5 cites
Read is not cited

Allianz Care converts reads into citations. Aviva doesn't.

When Claude or ChatGPT opens a brand's own pages while answering, does the page make the cited-sources list? Allianz Care converts 67% of reads; Aviva just 17%. That gap is a content problem, not a visibility problem.

Allianz Care · read 3×67%
WPA · read 4×50%
Vitality · read 7×43%
AXA · read 5×40%
Bupa · read 39×18%
Aviva · read 6×17%
Full data table
#BrandVisibilityAvg. positionCitation shareRead→cited
1Bupa40%1.734%18%
2Aviva32%2.514%17%
3AXA25%1.96%40%
4Vitality23%2.623%43%
5The Exeter7%5.00%0%
6WPA5%4.76%50%
7Allianz Care2%3.06%67%
8Freedom Healthinsurance2%4.06%50%
9MediCash2%6.00%
10Saga2%6.03%
11BHSF2%7.00%
12General & Medical2%8.00%
13Now Health International0%0%0%
14Post Office0%3%0%
15Zurich0%0%0%
Which AI you ask

The models do not agree on who leads.

Ask about health insurance and the brand you are shown depends on the assistant: Claude → Bupa, Gemini → Aviva, ChatGPT → Bupa. Their top-five lists share just 67% of names.

Claude recommends
Bupa
named in 25% of its answers
Gemini recommends
Aviva
named in 60% of its answers
ChatGPT recommends
Bupa
named in 35% of its answers

Brands whose visibility swings most between models — the bar per model, widest gap on the right.

Aviva 45pp
Bupa 35pp
AXA 35pp
Vitality 30pp
The Exeter 15pp
WPA 10pp
ClaudeGeminiChatGPT
The data behind this chart
BrandClaudeGeminiChatGPTSpread
Aviva20%60%15%45pp
Bupa25%60%35%35pp
AXA20%45%10%35pp
Vitality10%40%20%30pp
The Exeter0%15%5%15pp
WPA0%5%10%10pp
BHSF0%5%0%5pp
Freedom Healthinsurance0%5%0%5pp
MediCash0%5%0%5pp
Saga0%0%5%5pp
What AI reads here

Editorial carry health insurance.

Every page AI opened while answering, classified by what kind of page it is. Editorial supply the most citations; faq convert best — 100% of the ones models opened were actually cited.

Editorial
106 cited · 9 read only
92% of reads cited
How-to guides
59 cited · 2 read only
97% of reads cited
Comparisons
23 cited · 2 read only
92% of reads cited
Product pages
14 cited · 2 read only
88% of reads cited
Other
9 cited · 9 read only
50% of reads cited
faq
8 cited · 0 read only
100% of reads cited
Documentation
6 cited · 2 read only
75% of reads cited
Community threads
6 cited · 8 read only
43% of reads cited
The data behind this chart
Page typeCitedRead but not citedConversion
Editorial106992%
How-to guides59297%
Comparisons23292%
Product pages14288%
Other9950%
faq80100%
Documentation6275%
Community threads6843%
What gets cited

Structured data is what separates cited from ignored.

Of the health insurance pages models actually opened, how much more often each feature's pages ended up in the cited sources. Structured data is worth 27 percentage points; hard statistics pages fare 21pp worse. Measured within the read population, so selection can't flatter it.

Structured data +27pp
Comparison table +16pp
Named author +14pp
Answer up front +11pp
Updated this year +4pp
Hard statistics -21pp
The data behind this chart
FeaturePages withCited %Pages withoutCited %Difference
Structured data22793%6266%+27pp
Comparison table10997%18081%+16pp
Named author15594%13480%+14pp
Answer up front15093%13981%+11pp
Updated this year11590%17486%+4pp
Hard statistics7872%21193%-21pp
Citation readiness

WPA builds pages AI can quote.

Readiness scores each brand's own pages on the structure models reward — a direct answer up front, tables, hard numbers, named authors, structured data, recency, specifications. Vitality is the widest gap: well-built pages that still aren't converting into citations.

BrandReadinessPages citedPages profiled
WPA 40 83% 6
Vitality 35 6% 106
Post Office 29 0% 3
Bupa 28 8% 129
General & Medical 27 0% 7
AXA 25 3% 126
Saga 25 0% 8
Allianz Care 25 33% 3
Freedom Healthinsurance 24 14% 14
Aviva 24 2% 110

Readiness is the share of eight measurable structural signals present on a brand's profiled pages. It is a build-quality measure, not a ranking of the brand.

What the answers answer

The questions health insurance pages have to settle.

Read straight off the pages AI cited: the consumer questions cited content answers most often. Content that fails to settle these is content models have no reason to quote.

What does private health insurance cover?
What is self-employed health insurance?
How does private health insurance work?
What is private health insurance?
What is full medical underwriting?
What does self-employed health insurance cover?
What is moratorium underwriting?
What is Private Medical Insurance (PMI)?
Keep exploring

Nineteen more categories.

Method: 20 unbranded consumer prompts per category, spread across the buying journey, run weekly against ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Read→cited uses Claude and ChatGPT only (Gemini does not separate the two). Correlational observations of model behaviour at the time of the run. Data from the run completed Wed, 02 Sep 2026 06:50:23 GMT.

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