Private Health - Insurance subsidies cut for top income earners

From July 1, 2010, tax subsidies for private health insurance will given out according to income. People who earn more than A$120,000 a year will get no subsidy at all. The subsidy previously gave a 30 percent discount on health insurance premiums.

People aged below 65 and earning A$75,000-A$90,000 will have the subsidy cut to 20 percent. Those earning A$90,000-A$120,000 and aged below 65, will have their subsidy cut to 10 percent. With the possibility of drops outs from private health cover, the government will implement an additional tax that will be paid by wealthy people who choose to drop out of their private health insurance. The new tax will will be 1.5 percent of their total income.

About Ozecover
Ozecover is a GENUINE health insurance comparison site that offer a free service to the Australian public.
To make sure you are getting the best possible coverage for the money you spend, visit our site at: http://www.ozecover.com.au

An unsolicited email about the Ozecover website...

Congratulations on the great website and for providing such a service. I have been wading through info sent out from health insurance funds for months with little progress, and the other comparison sites only represent a few companies. Your site is attractive, easy to navigate and gives exceptionally quick quotes without the need to fill out pages and pages of private information.
Thank you.
(I read about the site in the Age Newspaper today 15/4)
SW.
Melbourne

How does Ozecover make it's money?

Some website operators are paid very large commissions for selling health insurance, and they only compare health insurance products from the insurers that pay them.

Ozecover includes health cover from every insurer and ccompares every product for which we can get the information. It is our philosophy to cater for people who want to do genuine comparison shopping and who want to make informed choices.

Some insurers are happy to provide electronic links so customers can apply for the products they want directly through the Ozecover website without further hassle. These insurers pay us referral fees of 2.5% of the premiums for the business they get this way. We also allow these insurers to advertise on the site.

The referral fees do not affect the suggestions we make or the premiums you pay. In framing our suggestions, we match your Quick Quote responses to the products of every available insurer at the best prices we can find in the market.

Compare health insurance in Australia now. There is no charge.

Save $1,000 per family on health insurance

"Most families are paying too much for their health insurance,” actuary Peter Carroll has told a Today Tonight program on Channel 7. “Families paying more than $200 a month can save as much as $1000 every year by shopping around on the internet.” Ozecover is the only commercial website that compares all available health insurance companies and sorts out the ten cheapest health cover deals for singles and for families based on a few simple questions. It empowers consumers.

Peter, who is an actuary and a director of Ozecover, a new website, says, “If you are worried about health insurance rates going up this week, check out the Ozecover website. It costs nothing to look and will show you how to get good cover for the best private hospitals in Australia for as little as $2 a day for a single person or $4 a day for a family. If you are paying any more, ask your health fund why.”

“With airfares, you can go on the internet and get a no frills ticket that gets you safely and easily where you want to go or you can pay a lot more for luxuries you can easily do without,” says Peter. ”With health insurance it is the same. You can use Ozecover to track down simple no frills health cover that does the job and saves you a lot of money, or you can keep paying for expensive frills and extras you might think are not worth the price, especially when times are hard.”

“Ozecover has all 38 health insurance companies in its database and sorts out the ten cheapest deals for singles and families based on a few simple questions. It gives power to consumers to shop around easily and anonymously, whether buying for the first time or comparing the value in existing insurance when rates and benefits are changing.”

Further information: http://www.ozecover.com.au or Peter Carroll on 1300 ECOVER.

Health and trauma insurance complement each other

"Trauma (or critical illness) cover is not a substitute for health insurance," Peter Carroll, an actuary with the consumer website Ozecover, told over 200 delegates at the Risk Store Conference on the Sunshine Coast this month, "they complement each other."

"Health insurance provides health cover for private hospital treatment, with community rated premiums and rebates for everyone, together with additional tax benefits for people paying the Medicare Levy Surcharge. No other form of insurance can match that. But in serious situations such as heart bypass surgery or cancer, additional cover is needed to provide financial support for patients who cannot drive or work, and are undergoing debilitating drug, chemo, radiation and hormone therapies often associated with these traumatic health conditions,” said Carroll. "That is where trauma cover comes in. The aftermath of these serious illnesses can affect families for many years. Health insurance Is a bargain as far as it goes but, ideally, consumers who want full cover for major illnesses need both private health insurance from a health cover fund and trauma or critical illness cover from a life company.”
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What are the health cover options for single parents?

You can choose to purchase single health cover just for yourself and avoid the extra cost of private health insurance for your children. This is the most economical option available and offers the benefits under lifetime health cover and enables you to avoid the 1% Medicare Levy Surcharge.

Healthy children are generally very low users of private health care and many parents are content with using Medicare coverage and, if they need private health services for their children, paying for it directly without medical insurance.

If you want private health cover for your children as well as for yourself, but not for an adult partner, some health insurance companies offer discounted rates for single parents. The discount is usually between 15% and 25% on the full family rates.

Single parent cover is an economical option if you are planning to have a baby and you want private health insurance for the mother and children, but not for the father. Newborn babies do sometimes need very expensive health care, especially if they are premature.

To make sure you are getting the very best Health cover for you money, go to www.ozecover.com.au. We search and compare every Australian health insurance company and product for you at no charge.

What should be done if you plan to have a baby?

We suggest you consider health cover both for you and for your baby.

For you, we suggest you check there is no exclusion for pregnancy, childbirth, obstetrics or similar on your private hospital cover. Most health insurance funds will not pay full benefits for childbirth until you have held your health insurance for 9 months or 12 months, so we suggest you have your private hospital cover in place at least a year before you plan to have your baby.

If you have singles only health cover or couples only health cover, usually health insurers will not pay benefits for children, even for newborn babies, but they will allow you to upgrade to family health cover while you are pregnant so your baby will be covered too. You should check this with your particular insurer.

If you already have couples cover, you may as well upgrade to family cover as soon as you start thinking about having a baby, because very often there is no extra cost.

To compare private health insurance and find the best and cheapest option for private health cover you and your family you can go to www.ozecover.com.au. The service costs you nothing and its the only one that compares every health insurance company and every product in Australia. Your quote is personalised, based on your answers to some simple questions.

Is it better to insure as a couple or as two singles?

If you do not want cover for dependent children, you and your partner might consider insuring separately as singles instead of as a couple.

Some health Insurance companies offer a discount for couples, so that can be a consideration, but the discount is usually quite small. Other insurers charge the same for a couple as they do for two singles taking out the same product.

If you insure as two singles, you have the flexibility to buy separate products reflecting the different health cover needs and circumstances of each person.

Also, if you choose cover with a deductible, it can be better to have separate deductibles at the single level (for example, $500 each) rather than one common deductible at the corresponding couple level ($1,000). Some insurers charge the full deductible if just one person makes a claim.

Details of discounts for couples, and how deductibles and other features work with a shared policy, are things you should ask the insurer when you apply for a policy.

To compare private health insurance and find the best and cheapest option for private health cover you and your family you can go to www.ozecover.com.au. The service costs you nothing and its the only one that compares every health insurance company and every product in Australia. Your quote is personalised, based on your answers to some simple questions.

Can I avoid the gap in cover?

If you go to hospital as a private patient, there can be unexpected gaps between the charges you incur and the benefits you get from Medicare and from your private health insurance. These gaps can be very substantial.

Gaps of this kind can arise from the policies of the hospital itself and of the medical practitioners that use that hospital.

If you ask, your insurer will provide you with details of hospitals where they have arrangements to avoid or restrict gap charges. Before you go to any particular hospital, it is a good idea to contact your insurer and double check the situation. You may choose to exercise your rights as a consumer to choose another hospital.

Of course, if you have a deductible or copayments on your health cover, you will have to pay those costs even if there is an agreement between your insurer and the hospital. However some hospitals will waive these too, so it is at least worth asking the question.

Doctors in Australia are free to charge whatever fees they believe are appropriate for their private services. However, many doctors also have arrangements with hospitals and with health insurance companies to limit the gaps between their fees and the amounts recoverable from Medicare and from private insurance.

Again, it is prudent to ask your doctor about charges, for the doctor’s
own services and also for those of any specialists (such as surgeons, anaesthetists and radiologists) that may be involved in your care.

You will not be charged more if you ask, and you may be charged less.

To compare health insurance and find the best and cheapest option for health cover you and your family you can go to www.ozecover.com.au. The service costs you nothing and its the only one that compares every health insurance company and every product in Australia. Your quote is personalised, based on your answers to some simple questions.

Health insurance premiums may go up in April

Every year the health insurance companies are required to update their product information and are then allowed to modify their pricing. This means that rates may go up in April. It is smart to lock in your health insurance now to avoid paying more.

To compare private health insurance and find the best and cheapest option for private health cover you and your family you can go to www.ozecover.com.au. The service costs you nothing and its the only one that compares every health insurance company and every product in Australia. Your quote is personalised, based on your answers to some simple questions.

How do I get value from private health cover?

It depends on whether you are likely to be a health insurance high claimer or a low claimer.

For Health cover high claimers - people who are frequent users of expensive private health insurance services such as prostheses, cosmetic surgery, orthodontics, IVF treatments - even the most expensive private health insurance products can be good value so long as the benefits exceed the premiums.

If you are likely to be a health insurance low claimer, private health insurance companies will consider you a very valuable customer and competition for your business is fierce. This means you can save real money by choosing your health cover wisely.

There are a number of methods that health insurance companies use to offer value to low claiming customers - the main ones are described below.

• Deductible (sometimes called a front-end deductible or excess) – you pay the first part of the total cost of a claim and your insurance cover starts after that. For example, under a hospital cover with a deductible of $500, you pay the first $500 of any claim and your insurer pays the balance. Hospital products with a deductible in excess of $500 per person or $1,000 per family do not qualify for avoidance of the 1% Medicare Levy Surcharge on high taxable incomes. Ozecover for example, does not suggest these non-qualifying hospital products.
• Co-payments (sometimes called moieties) - you make a contribution towards the cost of items which you claim, and your insurance pays the balance of the cost. For example, under a hospital cover with a co payment, you may pay $50 a day towards your accommodation in hospital or, with general cover, you may pay 30% of the cost of dental procedures, and your insurance pays the balance. Unlike deductibles, co payments may be used without restriction on hospital products that qualify for avoidance of the extra 1% Medicare levy. However, Ozecover again does not suggest products where co payments for hospital accommodation are more than $100 a day.
• Exclusions - these exclude cover for specified treatments. Common exclusions offered are for items related to childbirth, for cosmetic surgery and for expensive orthopedic procedures such as hip and knee replacements. Accepting exclusions can be a useful way of reducing premiums for people who, bec
  Publish Post
  ause of their circumstances or age, are most unlikely to want the excluded health insurance services.
• Benefit limits - restrict the maximum benefits an insurer will pay for particular services or in total. There are such limits on most private health insurance products to deter customers with frequent or sizable claims and to help keep health insurance premiums down for low claimers.

It is clearly important to do your research before deciding on your Private health insurance cover. Ozecover provides the only no-charge service in Australia, that allows you to do a comparison of every health insurance company and every product. Get your private health insurance quote now.

LOCK IN YOUR PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE

Peter Carroll, health fund actuary and director of consumer website Ozecover, advises consumers to lock in their current health fund premiums before health insurers increase their rates in April. Ozecover suggests consumers pay yearly if possible. This can reduce premiums by up to 10 per cent.

Be sure to compare private health insurance products to make sure you have the right one for you and your family.

How do I choose private health cover?

There are thousands of products on the market, and sorting through them is a difficult task even for experts.

To get good value for money, the product you select is more important than the particular insurer you choose. The primary decision for you to make is about hospital cover.

Once you have decided what to do about your hospital cover, you can think about whether it is worthwhile for you to pay more to get the extra benefits of general cover too. It does not make sense to spend more on extra premiums than you do on the health services they cover, many of which are routine day-to-day costs. If you think you might also benefit from adding general cover to your hospital cover, we suggest you discuss this directly with the Fund you choose.

You really need help to compare private health insurance products, otherwise you will spend many hours trying to sort it out yourself. The Quick Quote facility on Ozecover is designed to help you sort through all the different products, based on the information you tell us about yourself and your family. In most circumstances, the Quick Quote will suggest to you a list of hospital insurance covers from ten different insurers sorted in order of price. We suggest you make your primary decision about the hospital cover you want and, if you decide to buy, you may be able to apply directly through this site, because some have direct electronic linking to Ozecover.

What Does Private Health Insurance Cost?

Private health insurance is not cheap, and full cover for a family would cost as much as $3,000 to $4,000 a year. However, there are a number of ways of reducing these costs.

Firstly, the Commonwealth Government provides a rebate as a proportion of the total premiums paid for appropriate private health insurance. The proportion is 30% if the oldest person covered is less than 65 years of age, 35% if they are between 65 and 70 years of age, and 40% if they are over 70 years of age. This rebate is available even if you do not pay income tax. Your health insurer will claim the rebate on your behalf, and will bill you just the net amount. Your insurer will also adjust the rebate (thereby reducing your net premium) as you pass the age thresholds for the higher rebates.

Secondly, if you have a taxable income above a threshold amount - $70,000 a year for individuals and $140,000 a year for families - you must pay a 1% Medicare Levy Surcharge. However you can avoid this tax with suitable private hospital cover and, if you do so, the reduction in your tax is worth at least $700 a year for individuals and at least $1,400 a year for families.

These two Government incentives are added together. For example, if you are a single person under 65 years of age earning a taxable income of $110,000 a year, a premium of $2,000 a year for private health insurance will attract a rebate of $600 (ie 30% of the premium) and, if it includes suitable hospital cover, will eliminate your Medicare Levy Surcharge of $1,100 (ie 1% of $110,000), leaving a net cost to you of $300 a year.

Thirdly, if you are basically a healthy person and rarely go to hospital, then you can avoid cover which is too expensive for your needs and which you are unlikely to use, and you can reduce your premiums with deductibles, copayments and exclusions.

To compare private health insurance and find the best and cheapest option for you and your family you can go to www.ozecover.com.au. The service costs you nothing and its the only one that compares every health insurer and every product in Australia based on your answers to some simple questions.

What cover is available?

There are two basic kinds of private health insurance available in the market - hospital cover and general (sometimes called ancillary or extras) cover. Hospital cover provide benefits when you go to hospital as a private patient. (see Government incentives)

If you wish, you can go to any public hospital (that is a hospital operated by the government) as a Medicare patient and be treated without charge by a doctor appointed by the hospital. As a Medicare patient, you will usually be asked to wait your turn with other Medicare patients unless your treatment is considered to be an emergency.

Instead, you can choose to go to any hospital (government or otherwise) as a private patient. Then, you have the right to choose the doctors who treat you, and you can often avoid going on a waiting list.

Private patients must pay the hospital and the doctors who treat them and only some of these charges are covered by Medicare. Private hospital cover is designed to help you with the extra costs you incur as a private patient in hospital and after discharge from hospital.

There are different hospital covers available in the market – some designed for people who expect to incur frequent or large private hospital expenses and who want generous benefits, and others designed for people who are rarely in hospital or who are willing to pay some private hospital costs directly themselves.

General (ancillary or extras) cover provides benefits for health services you get from dentists, opticians, chiropractors and physiotherapists. Many of these services are not covered by Medicare, so private coverage is the only insurance option.

The services of doctors - GPs and specialists - are covered by Medicare. Private health insurance is available for these only to cover "gaps" between the Medicare benefits and doctors' prices when the doctors' services are provided in a hospital, but not otherwise.

The variety and levels of covers offered in the market are very broad. You can purchase hospital and general cover in combinations or, for most products, on a stand alone basis too. You can buy hospital cover from one insurer and general cover from a different one, if that suits you.

There are websites that allow you to compare various funds and products so you can select the appropriate one for you and your family. Ozecover is a comprehensive one that provides a free service and importantly includes all insurers and every product in the comparison. Click here to compare private health insurance and make sure you are getting the right coverage.

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Will I have hassles getting the cover I want?

Most health funds are open to anyone who wants to join, although there are a few which cater just for families who have a member working in a particular occupation, such as teaching, police or the armed forces.

The right of health insurers to deny you access if you are eligible or to charge you different premiums is limited by law. You may not be refused cover or charged more because you have health problems or have been sick in the past, or because of your sex or family status.

If you delay starting hospital cover until after the age of 30 years, Lifetime Health Cover loadings will be added to your premiums. The rules for these loadings are the same for everyone and, apart from some minor discounts for different ways of paying your premiums, these are the only variations allowed to the same basic premiums charged to everyone for any given product.

You can be required to wait for two months before any cover starts. Also, you can be refused benefits for "pre-existing" conditions for up to twelve months but you must be given full cover after the twelve months.

Some products have waiting periods longer than twelve months for particular benefits (eg expensive dental procedures) but these waiting periods must apply in the same way to everyone who buys those products.

An easy way to start looking for the right coverage is to compare private health funds. Ozecover offers a no charge, obligation free comparison of every fund and product based on the answers you give to some very simple questions. they return you a ranked list of the 10 best choices and give you the ability to side-by-side compare the details of every private health insurance product.

How safe are health insurers?

All private health insurance is regulated in Australia by the Commonwealth Government, under the Private Health Insurance Act 2007.

Every insurer has its finances monitored by the Private Health Insurance Administration Council, known in the industry as PHIAC. All must file reports on their solvency and capital adequacy at least every three months, and PHIAC has power to intervene with any insurer that has problems.

Every year PHIAC publishes a report on the finances of individual health insurers, and this document is available to the general public.

Who supplies health insurance products?

There were 38 organisations registered to offer private health insurance in Australia in June 2007, of which 25 are open to anyone who wants to join and 13 are restricted to families who have someone in particular occupations, such as teachers, police or armed services.

This market is changing quickly and these changes are likely to continue.

BUPA and MBF, Australia's second and third largest insurers, merged in June 2008.

Medibank Private and Australian Health Management announced in June 2008 that they are negotiating a merger.

HCF and Manchester Unity announced in August 2008 that they too were considering a merger.

Druids Friendly Society tranferred its business to GMHBA as at 1 October 2008.

To compare private Health Insurance check out Ozecover's free comparison service covering every Australian private health Insurer

What are the benefits of private health insurance?

Over 11 million Australians, more than half the population, have private health insurance in addition to cover from Medicare.

In surveys by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the main reasons people give for having private cover are to avoid hospital waiting lists, to have a choice of doctors in hospital, and for general peace of mind.

Also, the Commonwealth Government offers a number of "sticks and carrots" to encourage you to have private health cover, as follows:

• you get a rebate of at least 30% (more if you are over 65) of all your premiums for private hospital and "extras" cover
• you avoid a 1% Medicare Levy Surcharge payable when your taxable income is over $70,000 (single) or $140,000 (family), provided you have suitable hospital cover, and
• you establish an entry age that limits age-related premium loadings under Lifetime Health Cover, once you take out private hospital cover.