So, you bought some Private Health Insurance but life has moved on. How can you make sure that your Insurance now covers you for want you really need?

Before you can select a health insurance fund, you need to know how to compare the health funds and, most importantly, what to look for.

So do your homework and save yourself some money!
Know the terminology: breaking down the jargon.

Before you get hung up on Gap, Waiting Periods and Product Disclosure Statements find out exactly what they all mean.

Remember, keeping well informed is half the battle!

What do you need from your insurance?

Knowing the difference between Hospital Only Cover and Extras Cover can save you a bundle!

Hospital Only covers your costs as hospital in-patient. This means you are insured as a private patient in either a private or public hospital. The fund will cover either all or some of your accommodation costs while in hospital.

Extra’s (or Ancillary) Cover is an additional cost to your hospital insurance premium and designed to cover the cost of other health services such as dental, optical, physiotherapy and a range of other therapies. Be aware of the rules and “caps” that come with Extras Cover.

Extra! Extra!

Knowing what your family currently needs and planning for you future health requirements can be tricky. But, you should already have a good idea of what you’re likely to need.

Make a list of your possible medical requirements such as pregnancy, hip replacement, dental or optical needs and consider if these Extras are still relevant to your family.

Don’t pay the tax man!

There are many reasons why you should get Private Health Insurance and one of them is to make sure that you’re not paying the Government more than you need to.

Knowing about the Medicare Levy Surcharge (MLS), Lifetime Health Cover (LHC) and 30% Rebate and how they can affect you will help you make a better decision when selecting your Health Insurance.

Check your policy for Excess, Co-payment or Part-payment hospital options.

Generally you either pay an Excess or make Co-payments to the Health Insurer so making sure that your fund doesn’t require you to pay both is worth investigating.

Sometimes, you can agree to pay part of your hospital bills, which will reduce the overall cost of your premium.

Confirm your Continuity of Cover.

Are you reluctant to switch funds because of waiting periods?

Did you realise that when you have served waiting periods with an existing Health Insurance fund, you don’t have to re-serve these periods with your new policy?

New or different coverage may have waiting periods attached to them, so check with your Insurer to make sure if there are any new waiting periods.

Use a Health Fund Comparison consultant.

Know that you know what you are looking for; the best place to go is a Comparison website. These sites are designed to make comparing different funds very easy and are also very simple to use.

The wide variation in services bundled and limitations that funds put on individual or families rebates can make the process complicated, so using a consultant can save you a lot of time, stress and money.

Simply enter your information and they’ll find a great deal for you.

Author Bio: Frank Wall is a student of Private Health Insurance in Australia. He helps people compare private health insurance cover, find the cheap private health insurance and best extras or anciliary cover.

Category: Finances
Keywords: health insurance, fund, compare, extras, gap, cover