Health & Family Private health insurance

I'm with HBF in WA too, they have arrangements with a lot of local health providers where the gap is covered and you have no out of pocket expenses. Worth it to me for the peace of mind and not having a long wait in the public health system.

 

Cancelled everything. There is no room in the budget for it right now, plus we are young.

 

I'd rather put the savings towards staying healthy right now.

 

No one plans on getting sick or injured. It's akin to saying: I'd rather put the savings towards keeping my house in good condition rather than paying home insurance.
If you've read some of the replies before in this thread you'll know non critical surgeries ( like knee reconstruction) bear a many months long waiting list, keeping you in pain and miserable in the meantime. How many years would it take you for saved premiums to make up the cost of that one injury?
But each to their own, I guess. All insurances are a waste of money until the **** hits the fan.

 

Thats a good story of where health cover works.

My reason for cancelling was I'm over the constantly rising cost of the cover - which was only basic hospital cover. It had more exclusions than inclusions. How do you know which level of cover you need and even if you do get insurance, what if your insurance doesn't cover you when you need it most? That was my concern.

One thing that bugs me about insurance companies is they can bail out on you when you need them most, like a landlords cover we had a few years back. Paid a fortune for years and years and then the one time we wanted to claim it took months to get our claim (they made us take our tenant to court which took months, and then tried to fob off our claim due to the property manager not doing paperwork properly), then they cut the claim by 50%. Working out what we paid for insurance all those years, I often wondered if we were better off self insuring. Not saying that you shouldn't have insurance, its just when you pay for it and don't get the benefits of it that you realise they are in the business to make money .... and just because you have insurance doesn't mean you can be insured that all your risks are minimised.

 

Just wanted to comment on this, you are dead right and something I never gave thought to.

Have run the numbers and yep, not getting value from the extras cover. In the process of changing all insurances accordingly.

 

Yup I rented a car recently and when I told people I didn't pay extra to reduce the gap and they looked at me like I was crazy. 10-20k in the worst case, big whoop. These same people are in their 50-60's and don't purchase travel insurance when they go abroad. Get a stroke? Say good bye to everything. Always need to look at the big picture.

 

Definitely don't have extras either.
Found out some time ago the price of basic hospital + extras was about the same as top hospital with no extras. A no brainer.

 

Thanks Bran for your very clear explanations. They are really appreciated

I have Medibank Top Cover plus shares.

My fabulous local GP by doing annual checkup tests discovered I had a very serious liver illness. I saw a specialist in a matter of hours. I was in a private hospital within 24 hours. The Specialist also operates at the Public Hospital. He told me I would have had to wait 3 months for a bed.

I was very pleased to have my results and be started on treatment within days

As I get older I believe if is necessary to have that choice

 

I just called BUPA as of 31st of March and moved my payments from fortnightly direct debits to annual direct debits starting from that date. So I got to pay the same rate for next year as I did this year. It delays the increase by a year saving me $200 throughout the year and will probwbly save me next year as well once the premium goes up again, assuming it will (almost a certainty).

 

@Kate Moloney

From an earlier post on this thread, can't find the link again just now, but "Top Hospital Cover" must provide cover for everything that Medicare does.

EDITED to add:-

Found it, see this link How it works

It states:-

• Top Private Hospital Cover - must cover all services where Medicare pays a benefit;
  
• Medium Private Hospital Cover - excludes or restricts one or more of the following but includes any services in the basic classification: Pregnancy and birth related services, Assisted reproductive services,Cataract and eye lens procedures, Joint replacements i.e. shoulder, knee, hip and elbow including revisions, Hip and knee replacements, Hip replacements, Dialysis for chronic renal failure andSterilisation.
• Basic Private Hospital Cover - excludes or restricts one or more of the following: Cardiac and cardiac related services, Non-cosmetic plastic surgery, Rehabilitation, Psychiatric services, Palliative care;
• Public Hospital Cover - covers minimum benefits for treatment in public hospital only. Public hospital waiting lists still apply.

 

And thats the trouble, knowing which level of cover to have and taking a gamble so to speak that the level of cover you get will cover what you need when you need it.

 

The way I see it is if you can't go Top Hospital cover then there's probably no point in having hospital cover at all as even the Medium cover doesn't cover eyes or joints although it does cover cardiac and palliative care.

I've done the exercise of extras cover a few times, it never works out for us even though we both have spectacles and visit physio's etc. Emma found out last week she needs some pretty extensive (& expensive) dental care then proceeded to have a dig at me about when she "told" me a couple of years ago she'd need it at some pont and we should add on the extras cover. When I worked it out again, the premiums we would have paid over those years for the amount capped we'd have gotten back for her treatment meant we'd have been worse off than just paying for the treatment as we are now.