Health Insurance

When comparing covers, it’s not always about price. Review the policy waiting periods, excess, annual limits and decide if you want both Hospital and Extras cover to see what’s best for you. We've created a guide to finding the best cover for you over at The Check Up.

In Australia we have the public healthcare system (Medicare), which provides access to free or low-cost care for certain health issues. If your medical condition isn't life threatening, you may experience long waiting periods and you won't be able to choose your doctor or hospital. By having private health insurance, you’re able to be treated as a private patient, avoid public hospital waiting lists and choose your hospital and treating doctor. It also pays for some or all of the costs for your hospital accommodation, theatre, doctor and specialist fees. If you have Extras cover, it helps cover the costs of everyday services such as physiotherapy, dental and optical.

Private health insurance is made up of Hospital cover and Extras cover. You’re able to buy them separately or packaged together. Hospital cover helps you avoid public hospital waiting lists and pays benefits toward the cost of private treatment. Extras cover is for non-hospital everyday services like dental, optical and physio.

There's no one size fits all approach to private health cover. Your policy should be as individual as you are. The first step is to consider if you need cover as a single, couple or family, and then what you want to be covered for. Get a quote to view our cover options or call us.

We can help make sure you have the right health cover for your needs. If you’ve already served your waiting periods, you won't need to serve them again. However, you may have to serve waiting periods for the new services added to your policy if you’ve upgraded your level of cover. Log in to change your level of cover, or call us.

Lifetime Health Cover is a Federal Government initiative where a loading is applied to your premium if you take out hospital cover after 1 July following your 31st birthday. It's aimed at encouraging people to take out hospital cover early in life and maintain it.

Waiting periods are the time you need to wait after taking out private health insurance before you can claim on a service or item covered on your policy. All health insurers have them – it's necessary to keep health cover fair.

There are many benefits when choosing to purchase private health insurance, see our article on Why do I need private health insurance?, opens in a new tab to learn more.