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Private Health Insurance is going up by around 10% as of April 1. However, for many insurers, the last day to prepay your premiums is Friday 20th March. By simply calling your insurer you may be able to prepay your private health up to June 2016 at todays prices! For me this resulted in a $154 saving!
Better value than on your mortgage or in the bank. I've done it for years, I've also dropped extras on the grounds of value and have a huge excess on my policy - a top cover one.
Depending on mortgage interest rate but doubt anyone pays 7%.
With money in the bank most you get is 4% then you've got tax on that.
If you pay too high excess you'll get slugged with Medicare levy on your tax returns at least that's how it was few years back
People on plans with high excesses prior to the change in legislation remain exempt so long as they remain on those plans. Also, percentage based plans such as the one from CUA appear to escape the definition.
Mine is going up $60 a month. Definitely worth prepaying.
Thanks, I'm with Medibank and they can only lock in rates for up to 12 months. This will save me $46.20 for the whole year.
Oooh thanks! I'll contact them and see how we go.
Do you have any proof of your assertion that this Friday is the latest to pay with some providers? The % figures are usually averages, some plans always go up more than others even within the same health fund. I'm surprised if any providers can't do 12 months. You might find some that will even do a bit more but probably short of 24 months.
(Why is the SMH a related store? Link to article please.)
I always pay before 01 April when otherwise my premium would go up. I get the points on the cc to use asap.
Could you prepay for part of the year?
Yep, but your next payment will be post price rise.
I just prepayed mine for 12 months in advance with Australian Unity. Saved around $200. Was also able to use Anz Black Amex fee free for 1.5pts/$. Win-Win
I wish my fund gave a discount for 12 months payment. :-( I'm waiting for my credit card closing date to pass before I pay mine, so I get to earn almost another months interest on the funds.
My premium is going up by $14.75. Trying to decide how far ahead to pay in advance. Any ideas how I should calculate that? Thanks
14.75 multiply by the max amount of months you can prepay giving you total max savings.
At last my 4unit high school maths comes in handy
Ask your health fund how much it will cost to extend your policy up to but not including March 31, 2016.
Pay as much as you afford to now (without incurring a debt with interest of more than $14.75/<existing premium>.)
I'm with HCF. Prepayment for 18 months is allowable for credit cards up to 31/3.
Will save me 10%.
Lock in to next March and give yourself time to shop around. It's amazing what deals funds will throw at you to win your business or retain it. Do this every year and you should be able to save at least one month's premium with all the offers around.
I'm currently paying $5000 per year.
If I were to pre-pay and put it on the mortgage…that's an average of $2500 costing me 4.5%pa…or just under $125 in interest.
I can probably save more money by changing health fund as we no longer have any orthodontic allowance left having burned through all of that (so why keep paying for it)…but wife needs cover for hip replacement surgery + lots of other health issues.
Why can't you do both
change to a cheaper health fund and hopefully get 1 free bonus month(they used to do this to win new customers) and also prepay with new health fund to protect yourself from fee hike
Thanks OP. Prepaid mine until end of March 2016. All this time the rate rises have been end of March - and the health funds I'm with didn't encourage me to prepay - and I've always paid end of June thinking I was saving.
From memory (used to work in the IT dept @ HBA)…you could pre-pay 18 months.
But assuming a yearly policy is the maximum, would the last six months be charged at post-April rates?
(or have dates adjusted after a price rise as used to happen)
Doing rough sums in my head suggests there's no net cash benefit if you did that repeatedly and whether you come out ahead or behind depends on interest rate movements. In 18 months time you should pay for the smallest increment possible (assuming no discount for longer terms) for 6 months, then pay for another 18 months.
If you pay 18 months repeatedly, you lock-in pre April 1 2015 prices for 18 months, but that also means that you would also be paying 18 months of pre April 2017 price, rather than 12 each of 2016 and 2017.
Only got basic hospital cover to reduce tax, mine only increased by $3 something a month, guess it's not worth it eh…probably saved more by switching to others I guess..
Unless you're sure your never going to need a hospital admission, I'd opt for a better policy with a higher excess rather a policy with exclusions and lower excess. You can always choose to be treated as public patient even if you have a policy.
I was told the last day to prepay for Medibank is 31st of March.
Dunno about any other funds but with HIF pre paying the next 12 months not only saves you from the rate rise, but also gets you a 4% discount for annual payments at the current pre-rise rates. Double win.
Not my current fund, sadly and the one before put an end to it years ago. Some funds give (or gave) you a discount for automatic payments which pisses me off since payment from CCs cost them more.
Customers are less likely to miss payments or cancel the contract if payments are being made automatically, so businesses are willing to absorb the CC charges and still offer a discount for automatic payments.
You are correct but they could make other discounts conditional on on-time payment. Otherwise, there is no incentive to pay far in advance except to avoid the annual price rise. If a payment method is advantageous to them over another it should have a discount.
I'm almost inclined to pay with a platinum card since that costs them the most in fees especially since they are now per-profit.
I also despise the in-security of automatic payments.
I prepaid for our family up to June 30, 2016. It will save us $460 all up.
AHM told me to prepay for upto 14 months by 31 march 2015 to retain the current rate…I have saved $53 by prepaying for 14 months.
Thank you for the tip, went and got it prepaid at bupa.
Looks like the last day to pay / length in advance you can pay differs between a few. However, April 1 is definitely too late regardless of fund. Glad to see so many people saving in the $100's
Bumping this up again, with the current health insurance rise of 9 or 10% on average coming into effect 1/4/17. A good idea if you are able, to pay the next 12 months (or part of it at least) before the end of March so you can pay it at the current rate (you'd want to do it by the 28/3 to allow enough time for processing, Bupa says by the 27/3).
I suspect that the percentage of customers who can either afford or want to tie up so much money is actually very small especially those with top cover family policies.