From UK origins to global healthcare leader
Bupa was established on 3 April 1947 with a clear purpose: to prevent, relieve, and treat illness of all kinds. This founding commitment, rooted in care and choice, remains central to our mission today.
Originally known as the British United Provident Association, Bupa was formed through the coming together of several large and small provident associations and hospital contributory schemes. United by a shared vision of better healthcare, they created Bupa as a company limited by guarantee. With no shareholders, we reinvest profits into providing more and better healthcare for the benefit of future customers.
Today, we are an international healthcare company serving over 60 million customers worldwide. For more than 75 years we have been driven by our purpose of helping people live longer, healthier, happier lives and making a better world. Our ambition is to be the world's most customer-centric healthcare company.
Bupa through the years
Bupa's global roots run deep. In Australia, the firm that was to join Bupa in 2002 was originally founded in the 1930s to help people cover the cost of their hospital treatment. Sanitas, our business in Spain, was founded in 1956 and joined Bupa in 1989. Hong Kong was one of the first places outside the UK that Bupa expanded into during the 1970s.
We began the first major company health insurance scheme.
We adopted our first logo: a shield. The accompanying motto ‘Your Shield in Illness’ expressed our caring and protective approach to our customers, and reflected our commitment to offering affordable, high-quality healthcare.
Membership grew as demand for healthcare increased dramatically. To meet this demand, we founded the Nursing Homes Charitable Trust, later renamed Nuffield Hospitals.
By 1955, Bupa membership had exceeded 200,000.
By 1960 we had around 400,000 subscriptions and insured nearly 800,000 people.
In the face of huge pressure on UK hospital places, our hospital funding programme created a national network providing quality care.
We helped found the International Federation of Voluntary Health Service Funds and Bupa membership reached 1.5 million.
By the end of the 1960s, Bupa was well-established as the UK’s leading health-insurer but we were also beginning to take a more active role in the direct provision of healthcare, a trend that would accelerate during the 1970s.
We pioneered the concept of health screening, opening our first health screening centre in London in 1970, screening 7,500 people during that year.
In 1976 we acquired the UK’s first full-body scanner. By helping doctors to confirm or rule out an initial diagnosis, CT scanners have saved countless lives. Bupa was one of the first organisations in the UK to recognise their value.
Malta was the site of Bupa’s first overseas business in 1971.We also first began to expand to provide services across Asia, beginning in Hong Kong in 1976.
In 1979, the Bupa Medical Foundation was created. By the time the Foundation was replaced by new charitable initiatives in 2013, it had given grants of more than £33 million to promising medical research projects.
We grew our European footprint by acquiring Sanitas, by then Spain’s largest healthcare organisation, in 1989. We also began working in tandem with the UK's National Health Service, and began working with universities in the postgraduate training of young doctors.
In 1982, Bupa International was launched to provide worldwide medical cover to people working outside their home country. This initiative was described as ‘the first comprehensive scheme to make available a flexible structure of benefits to provide adequate cover for hospital treatment and specialist fees anywhere in the world’.
The 1980s saw Bupa’s first entry into the care home sector in the UK.
We continued to grow in the care homes sector with the acquisition of over 200 homes in the UK.
We expanded our Asian footprint to Thailand in the mid-1990s and Saudi Arabia in 1997.
We acquired Barbican Healthcare in 1999, which strengthened Bupa’s occupational health and screening activities and gave us the opportunity to directly provide dental services for the first time.
Bupa's international health insurance business continued to grow. By the early 1990s, we covered 170 countries and settled claims in 84 currencies.
At the start of the decade, we had 31,000 employees.
Sanitas became the first company in Spain to sell health insurance policies to customers over the internet. We opened two new hospitals in Spain.
We entered the Australian health insurance market and also expanded our care homes division into Australia and New Zealand.
The UK business underwent a major change in 2007 with the sale of the majority of Bupa's hospitals.
Our operations continued to grow across the Middle East. We also bought Health Dialog in the US, specialists in effective healthcare management.
We set up Bupa Wellness in the UK in 1999, creating a leading provider of high-quality, progressive, preventative healthcare services. By the middle of the 2000s, there were more than 40 Bupa Wellness clinics.
By 2008 the UK health insurance business covered four million people.
In March 2008, we purchased the Bupa Cromwell Hospital in the UK, a leading London hospital renowned for being the first to invest in cutting edge equipment and cancer services.
We expanded in Asia and Latin America, and grew into new areas in existing markets, including opening more dental clinics in Australia, Spain and the UK.
Max Bupa launched in India in 2010. In June 2016 we increased our stake to 49%. In 2021 we announced a rebrand to Niva Bupa.
In 2012, we entered Poland by acquiring LUX MED, Poland's largest private healthcare provider, including four hospitals and over 100 clinics.
We bought a 56.38% stake in Chile's Cruz Blanca Salud in 2013, and purchased the remainder of what has become Bupa Chile, in 2016.
In 2013, we acquired Richmond Care Villages in the UK, and purchased Quality HealthCare, the largest private clinic network in Hong Kong.
In Australia, we brought our three health insurance brands under the Bupa name, and in December 2013, we purchased Dental Corporation, Australia and New Zealand's largest dental group.
We entered into a strategic global partnership with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA)1. Together we are the largest network of healthcare providers worldwide, giving customers of our Bupa Global2/BlueCross BlueShield co-branded products access to over 1.2 million medical providers worldwide.
We have continued to selectively enter new health insurance markets, acquiring Care Plus in Brazil in 2016 and Acibadem Sigorta in Türkiye in 2019. We divested our insurance business in Thailand in 2017.
As a result of the partnership entered into between Bupa and Nazer Group in 1997, Bupa Arabia was listed on the Saudi Arabian stock market (Tadawul), in the KSA in 2008. Bupa has incrementally increased its shareholding in Bupa Arabia to 43.25% in 2020.
During this period Bupa has also significantly increased its footprint in dental care worldwide, including acquiring Oasis Dental Care and its portfolio of 380 practices in the UK and Ireland.
1 The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is a national federation of 36 independent, community-based and locally operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies that collectively provide healthcare coverage for more than 107 million members.
2 Bupa Global is a trade name of Bupa, an independent licensee of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Bupa Global’s rights to use the Blue Cross Blue Shield Brands are limited in some areas.
We now serve over 60 million customers and have businesses around the world, principally in Australia, the UK, Spain, Poland Chile, Hong Kong SAR, India, Türkiye, Brazil, Mexico and New Zealand. We also have associate businesses in Saudi Arabia. We specialise in health insurance, health provision and aged care. Our ‘Connected Care’ model makes healthcare more convenient for our customers – by connecting our health provision with our health insurance products, we can give customers a seamless experience.
In 2021, we launched our digital health platform, Blua, giving Bupa customers convenient access to digital health services through the Bupa app. Blua is now available in all major markets in which we operate, with over 8.1 million customers. It features virtual consultations, personalised health programmes and remote healthcare, allowing customers to receive care at home or on-the-go.
In January 2024, we became the controlling shareholder in our Indian health insurance business, Niva Bupa. Later that year, Niva Bupa successfully listed a minority shareholding via an Initial Public Offering, raising additional capital and marking an exciting step in the business’ growth.
In 2025, we launched our new 3 x 100 strategy including three global Emblematic projects which illustrate how we’re re-investing our profit into our purpose.
- The first is Genomics: Our ‘My Genomic Health’ programme uses genomic testing to help customers better understand their health and the potential of developing certain health conditions, giving them the opportunity to take preventative action through tailored health recommendations.
- The second Emblematic Project relates to improving doctors’ interactions with patients through better data: This project is designed to create structured, usable customer health information from various data sources, increasing the quality and completeness of our data. This will allow our clinicians to spend more time helping our customers.
- The third project is Mental health: This is our commitment to expanding mental health services to better serve existing and new customers. We are committed to opening 200 mental health centres worldwide under the brand name, Mindplace, making high-quality, mental healthcare accessible to more people.
In 2025, we opened Hospital Blua Sanitas Valdebebas, a new digital hospital in Madrid combining technology, sustainability and personalised care, and acquired Hospital Magnus in Poland. That year, we also agreed terms to acquire our first hospitals in London since 2008, the New Victoria Hospital and King Edward VII’s Hospital, which extend our Connected Care offering.
Also in 2025, Sanitas launched Bupa Portugal, its branch which offers services to Portuguese customers.