MikeW Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 Hi, Wife, two kids and I been in Australia for over a year now and finally getting round to looking for family health and dental cover. Both my children, 10 and 7 year olds will require tooth braces so this is something we need to factor in. Does anyone have any ideas roughly how much health\dental cover a family per month? How do people choose who to go with? It's obviously a huge thing that is important you get it right, so I'm not sure if anyone offers advice? Cheers, Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celt Down Under Posted September 2, 2012 Share Posted September 2, 2012 Hi, Wife, two kids and I been in Australia for over a year now and finally getting round to looking for family health and dental cover. Both my children, 10 and 7 year olds will require tooth braces so this is something we need to factor in. Does anyone have any ideas roughly how much health\dental cover a family per month? How do people choose who to go with? It's obviously a huge thing that is important you get it right, so I'm not sure if anyone offers advice? Cheers, Mike. We pay top cover with Peoplecare, and it is about $152 a fortnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 3, 2012 Author Share Posted September 3, 2012 Thanks for the info... costly but worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Collins Posted September 3, 2012 Share Posted September 3, 2012 Hi MikeW We now live in the UK, but when in Aus, we had cover with http://www.nib.com.au. They had a great dental package. You can adjust the excess to help smooth the impact, as in most cases, you're most likely to use the dental, odd bit of physio, orthotics and things like that. Nonetheless, your health history or cash reserves may warrant going for a smaller excess. The rules about tax & rebates can be found here http://www.ato.gov.au/content/00285805.htm If you're a bit lost and not up to comparing A to B, I'd recommend using http://www.iselect.com.au/ to broker the right deal for you. Hope that helps. Cheers Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 Hi Dan, Have just had a quick look, lots of options. NIB, Bupa and Medibank are very close to my work so I will call in one lunch time soon. May be easier face to face. Appreciate your advice. Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Collins Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I strongly recommend the extras on health insurance. We all hope we'll never need an op, and as often the case with insurance, we never do. It's the few who need it, funded by the majority. Fair enough. At least with options though, you cover stuff like physio, glasses you ordinarily would spend money on anyway. We always ran up a tally each year to compare the value of having the cover and also for tax preparation. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andrew D Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Hi You can get good cover for a family, with cover for Braces, for about $200 per month.. try ChooseWell (free brokers) on 1300 42 1154.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loopylu Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Hi, Wife, two kids and I been in Australia for over a year now and finally getting round to looking for family health and dental cover. Both my children, 10 and 7 year olds will require tooth braces so this is something we need to factor in. Does anyone have any ideas roughly how much health\dental cover a family per month? How do people choose who to go with? It's obviously a huge thing that is important you get it right, so I'm not sure if anyone offers advice? Cheers, Mike. Mike Are you here on a PR visa? If so, you need to get a move on with sorting out your health insurance. Suggest you visit this page to see why: http://www.privatehealth.gov.au/healthinsurance/incentivessurcharges/lifetimehealthcover.htm Basically, if you are a migrant, aged over 31 and don't take out health insurance within 12 months of registering with Medicare, you will have to pay a 2% loading on top of your premium for every year you are aged over 30. To prove to an insurance company that you qualify for no extra loading you have to contact Medicare to get a letter to say that you are migrant who registered with Medicare within the last 12 months. If you are over 31, I hope that I have got to you in time! Cheers Loopylu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeW Posted September 6, 2012 Author Share Posted September 6, 2012 Thanks all for replies. We have been in Australia for 14 months and registered with Medicare 14 months ago. Loopylu - thanks for pointing this out - I wasn't aware :-( I am 40 so need to get it sorted quickly! Cheers, Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loopylu Posted September 6, 2012 Share Posted September 6, 2012 Thanks all for replies. We have been in Australia for 14 months and registered with Medicare 14 months ago. Loopylu - thanks for pointing this out - I wasn't aware :-( I am 40 so need to get it sorted quickly! Cheers, Mike. Sorry to hear this. However, after 10 years of paying your premiums with loading they have to remove the loading so you'll get a discount somewhere down the line.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andrew D Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 At 40 the loadings won't be much, as they are only applied to the hospital component. Try a cover without pregnancy, and you'll see that the age based loadings only add a few dollars.. Don't think anyone does a good job of letting migrants know that they only have 12 months to avoid the loadings! :biggrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petals Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 We had private health for years then gave it up for a long long time, we now have it again. I take the view get it when you need it. Even with the loading if you get it later in life when you are likely to need ops, new hips, knees etc. you come out on top with the premiums. The problem is its not just the premiums you have to find you have to have money behind you for the gap payments. Some doctors go way over the top in their fees and the gap can be quite large. I had my knee replaced this year and it cost us $3,000.00 in gap fees and we have top private cover. Privarte health only covers the costs of the private hospital, the doctors are covered by medicare and they mostly charge over the scheduled fee when dealing with private patients. If we are hurt in a car accident we are covered by the motor registration, if we are hurt at work we are covered by work cover, if we have an emergency we are taken to the public hospital and treated there. So you really need to look into it. We gave up the extras as they no longer give the return we used to get and we just pay and claim off our tax. Not everyone can afford health insurance its a lot of money to find if there is a family and house to pay for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loopylu Posted September 9, 2012 Share Posted September 9, 2012 We had private health for years then gave it up for a long long time, we now have it again. I take the view get it when you need it. Even with the loading if you get it later in life when you are likely to need ops, new hips, knees etc. you come out on top with the premiums. The problem is its not just the premiums you have to find you have to have money behind you for the gap payments. Some doctors go way over the top in their fees and the gap can be quite large. I had my knee replaced this year and it cost us $3,000.00 in gap fees and we have top private cover. Privarte health only covers the costs of the private hospital, the doctors are covered by medicare and they mostly charge over the scheduled fee when dealing with private patients. If we are hurt in a car accident we are covered by the motor registration, if we are hurt at work we are covered by work cover, if we have an emergency we are taken to the public hospital and treated there. So you really need to look into it. We gave up the extras as they no longer give the return we used to get and we just pay and claim off our tax. Not everyone can afford health insurance its a lot of money to find if there is a family and house to pay for. Hi Petals I agree about the hidden costs of the gap fees. We only use our health insurance for the dentistry and optical extras. We are in the position where my salary is just above the threshold for the Medicare Levy so it is more cost effective to have the insurance than pay the extra tax. However, it galls me that there are five people living off my salary so we are hardly flush for cash and can't afford to pay any gap if we wanted to use the health insurance.... My daughter has waited nearly three years to be seen by an ENT specialist in the public system and now needs an adenoidectomy. It will probably be another 6 months before she gets the op. We don't have the money to pay the gap and put her through on our private health insurance. Cheers Loopylu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petals Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Hi Petals I agree about the hidden costs of the gap fees. We only use our health insurance for the dentistry and optical extras. We are in the position where my salary is just above the threshold for the Medicare Levy so it is more cost effective to have the insurance than pay the extra tax. However, it galls me that there are five people living off my salary so we are hardly flush for cash and can't afford to pay any gap if we wanted to use the health insurance.... My daughter has waited nearly three years to be seen by an ENT specialist in the public system and now needs an adenoidectomy. It will probably be another 6 months before she gets the op. We don't have the money to pay the gap and put her through on our private health insurance. Cheers Loopylu. We are retired now but when we were both working we just paid the extra levy, only took out health insurance after we retired. Its now that we will use it and the savings in paying premiums for years and years of not using it is a lot less than the age excess we now pay. Plus we get to use it. We found extras a waste of time in the end and have not included them in our cover this time. When we were uninsured we used to put money away in a health account and figured if we needed a small op we could just pay, and we did for day procedures etc. Often you can get a deal with the hospital and the specialists to pay for it. Have you looked at another public hospital for the op, quite often different hospitals have different waiting times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loopylu Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 We are retired now but when we were both working we just paid the extra levy, only took out health insurance after we retired. Its now that we will use it and the savings in paying premiums for years and years of not using it is a lot less than the age excess we now pay. Plus we get to use it. We found extras a waste of time in the end and have not included them in our cover this time. When we were uninsured we used to put money away in a health account and figured if we needed a small op we could just pay, and we did for day procedures etc. Often you can get a deal with the hospital and the specialists to pay for it. Have you looked at another public hospital for the op, quite often different hospitals have different waiting times. We don't have a lot of choice here in Brisbane as there are only two children's hospitals and these will soon be merged into two. The care at the Royal Children's is probably the best you can get so I think we'll just sit it out! We've opted to go on the short notice list where others cancel so we may get the op sooner than is normally the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
an1ta Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Hi Petals I agree about the hidden costs of the gap fees. We only use our health insurance for the dentistry and optical extras. We are in the position where my salary is just above the threshold for the Medicare Levy so it is more cost effective to have the insurance than pay the extra tax. However, it galls me that there are five people living off my salary so we are hardly flush for cash and can't afford to pay any gap if we wanted to use the health insurance.... My daughter has waited nearly three years to be seen by an ENT specialist in the public system and now needs an adenoidectomy. It will probably be another 6 months before she gets the op. We don't have the money to pay the gap and put her through on our private health insurance. Cheers Loopylu. We have Ambulance extra, Air, sea and land, because my kids do water storts and other sports. You can only claim so much back towards having braces, My sons teeth cost me 7000 dolars and I got about 1000 back in total.. It covers you for a few others things aswell you need to look into it.... I do not beleive in giving these people y money when u dont need to. My son broke his hand and also had to have stitches in his arm, all free. Hes been taken to hospital a few times with whiplash due to playing rugby all treatment was free. 1 of my daughters was in a car accident, loads of brain scans, all free, (she was fine by the way). I got rushed to hospital at 4 in the morning I had a blood clot in my stomach, was kept in hospital for 4 nights, I didnt pay a cent.. They really looked after me. My daughter have to have her tonsils out, we had to go on the waiting list, we told them we would take something at short notice, 2 months she waited not bad. My aussie friend is having a baby she does'nt need any other cover. I personally would only get the Ambulance exrta cover, I dont think u need anything else.... Hope this hepls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fashionably Late Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 We are a family of 5 and we pay $285 a month with HCF and they have been brilliant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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