Health insurance

[johnhenryshammer]

Hi All,

need a little assistance. I'm due over to Perth in March '11 on a 457. Can anybody recommend a health insurance scheme for me, also my partner and daughter are (hopefully) coming out a little later so would need to include them.

Thanks for any advice.

P.S. Will my mobile phone work with an aussie sim card, it's a quite new model on tesco (O2 network), 3g and all the gizmos on it. Needs unlocking though.

[Guest spongy42]

We signed up with medibank for health insurance

can't help with phone but am sure someone else will

[tisme]

Have a look at www.iselect.com to compare health covers, not all companies are listed on the link but it will give you an idea of what your looking at. If when you get here you find you have chosen the wrong cover it's ok to change companies without penalties.

Choose a WA based company, they have agreements with local dentists, opticians, etc to give their members a discount.

 

Providing your phone is NOT locked to a network you can use an Oz sim here no problem.

[ali]

We're with medibank

[johnhenryshammer]

OK, thanks for responses. I'm looking at around $1800 for cover, i assume that would be a basic cover, is ambulance insurance a bolt on? not sure. tahnks again

[tisme]

I know with the bigger companies like HBF and Medibank, ambulance is included in the cover, it is a must to get ambulance cover, it's very expensive for a short ride in one. Some of the east coast insurance companies don't include it, as it paid for in other ways. If I were you I would stick to one of the major companies HBF or Medibank, you can always change later if you find you can get a better deal elsewhere.

 

I too am with Medibank, (not through choice, we exceed the combined income threshold). I don't believe there should be a private sector in healthcare, we should all be treated equal. If all the money collected for Private cover was spent on the public sector, not admisitration costs, Australia would have a world first class health system for everyone. (I'll jump off my soap box now) lol.

[Pozz]

I went with HBA, purely at first as I needed cover for my 457 and it was easy to apply for 1 month online to get my visa.

 

Since then ive stayed with them as the cover seems pretty good, $150 per month for family of 3, with ambulance cover included.

[Parley]

If I had my time over again. I would self insure.

Basically you would take your $1800 per month and put it in a separate savings account.

Keep putting in the equiv premium and draw on the account if and when you need to as expense come up.

 

It depends a bit on how healthy you are, but in my case I would probably have $50K in the bank after all these years.

Same principle applies for other insurance such as car insurance.

 

I wouldn't do it for home insurance though.

 

The risk is that if you need to claim in the first year you may be behind.

But I would definately consider it.

[tisme]

If I had my time over again. I would self insure.

Basically you would take your $1800 per month and put it in a separate savings account.

Keep putting in the equiv premium and draw on the account if and when you need to as expense come up.

 

It depends a bit on how healthy you are, but in my case I would probably have $50K in the bank after all these years.

Same principle applies for other insurance such as car insurance.

 

I wouldn't do it for home insurance though.

 

The risk is that if you need to claim in the first year you may be behind.

But I would definately consider it.

 

The benefit of going with a company over self insurance is hospital waiting times, if it's elective surgery, you could be waiting forever to get the surgery done, with private it can be done almost immediately. But for ancillary cover it makes sense to self insure.

 

If the Tax man didn't have me by the short and curlies I wouldn't bother with a health fund but would self insure to cover ancillary.