Any Tips for Comparing Energy Offers?

• 

  [Deactivated] on 24/08/2020 - 11:32

  +4

  what state are you in?

  If Victoria= https://compare.energy.vic.gov.au/

• 

  salrock on 24/08/2020 - 11:35

  +5

  I do following, It may help you .

  Current :

  *What is your current Electricity & Gas per Unit Charge (after discount):
  *What is your current Electricity & Gas daily supply charge (after discount) :

  New :

  *What is your New Electricity & Gas per Unit Charge (after discount):
  *What is your New Electricity & Gas daily supply charge (after discount) :

  Compare Current with New and make a decision .

  Use following Link for VIC : https://compare.energy.vic.gov.au/

• 

  Euphemistic on 24/08/2020 - 11:38

  +4

  It seems the market has deliberately made it difficult to compare. It’s like the old mobile phone plans. Looks cheap on the surface, then they hit you with a sneaky cost somewhere else.

  Last time I looked at ebergymadeeasy site it gave me a couple of pages of offers from half a dozen providers. So I didn’t go any further, our bills aren’t that high anyway due to solar and low usage.

• 

  redrum22 on 24/08/2020 - 11:39

  +1

  I am in Victoria, and I have had a look at that website before, but still wasn't sure based on some of the variables I mentioned in my original post.

  So your feedback is really just keep it simple and compare the unit and supply charge rates, not not worry about usage and different steps/rates?

  • 

    bloom on 24/08/2020 - 12:08

    Vic compare you upload previous bills and it does all the number crunching for you

    • 

      dasher86 on 24/08/2020 - 13:28

      i'm not too sure about that 'previous bills' - do they just take this amount and annualise it out?
      How do they account for peak electricity usage in summer if you upload an winter/autumn bill?

      • 

        ozzie freddo on 31/08/2020 - 16:18

        You can upload your smart meter file which gives you at least a year's records of your usage for EVERY half hour. So the comparison is extremely customised to your actual usage.

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  BeamMeUp on 24/08/2020 - 12:01

  Just to add to the fun if you want to do your head in even more have a go at trying to compare private health insurance providers. Its even worse if you need to look at the higher level covers.

  • 

    vikvance on 24/08/2020 - 12:35

    Private Health Insurance is not that hard, ever since the industry was forced to standardise cover to Gold, Silver, Bronze etc.

    For Hospital Cover:

    Firstly, have a look at the exclusions for each type of cover, to see the type of things for which you would be OK with relying on the public health care system. This'll tell you whether you need Gold or Silver or Bronze etc. cover.

    Then, think about how much you would be willing to pay out of pocket if you had to go to hospital. This'll tell you how much Excess you are Ok with.

    Now, you can compare, say monthly premiums, for the same level of cover & same Excess across different insurers.

    For Extras Cover:

    Think about what type of cover you might need over the next year: Optical, Dental, Pharmacy, Psychological etc. And then, how much you might end up spending. That is, will you use up all of the Pscyhological cover, for example. You can then have compare how much you might get back in benefits against the premiums you'll have to pay.

    • 

      Chandler on 24/08/2020 - 14:53

      +1

      Except its not that easy. The Gold/Silver/Bronze is for hospital cover - completely ignoring extras, which most insurer's push with their packages. And there's quite a lot of variations of just hospital cover (see below). Then you add the Hospital + Extras covers… it gets hard to compare, fast. Under the new tiered system it IS easier, but still not easy. And I think my understanding is above average.

      i.e. in Hospital ONLY cover.

      • AHM
        
        • starter basic
        • essentials basic plus
        • starter bronze
        • lite bronze plus
        • core bronze plus
        • starter silver
        • classic silver plus
        • deluxe silver plus
        • top hospital gold
      • Bupa
        
        • Accident Only Hospital - Basic
        • Starter Hospital - Basic Plus
        • Lite Hospital - Bronze Plus
        • Mid Hospital - Silver Plus
        • Silver Plus Hospital
        • Gold Hospital
      • HCF
        
        • have to do a quote
      • Medibank Private
        
        • Bronze Everyday
        • Bronze Plus Progress
        • Silver Everyday
        • Silver Plus Assured
        • Silver Plus Security
        • Gold Complete
      • NIB
        
        • have to do a quote

      Everyone has two to three versions of Bronze and of Silver, each with their own naming.

      • 

        IVI on 02/09/2020 - 09:31

        Bupa also offers an "Emergenct Only" Ambulance Cover from ~$39 / yr.

        (They announced an Increase in the midst of the COVID' era,
        but, soon afterward, canceled the rise.)

        • 

          Chandler on 09/09/2020 - 09:44

          @IVI:

          (They announced an Increase in the midst of the COVID' era, but, soon afterward, canceled the rise.)

          Most PHI's increase their premiums on April 1. Most put them on hold.

    • 

      BeamMeUp on 24/08/2020 - 20:14

      Yeah piece of cake. As per Chandler, different providers vary what’s included even when you just look at Silver. There’s more variations in the metals than a jewellery shop. Then theres different packages of extras with different inclusions AND these have different $ limits AND pay you back different amounts on various procedures, yep not that hard to compare providers…..

  • 

    ozzie freddo on 31/08/2020 - 16:19

    hey, don't hijack the energy discussion. Start a new topic for that!

• 

  brad1-8tsi on 24/08/2020 - 12:36

  +1

  I do them separate as there doesn't appear to be a financial gain in combining.

  Cheapest gas fro my area is Click or Amaysim (same companies).

  Cheapest power is Click. I used Energynadeeasy.gov.au and wattever.com.au and the NSW gov't site as all three were giving different answers. Click came out the cheapest for me. I can guarantee in 3 months there will be a better deal as they tweak prices.

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  redrum22 on 25/08/2020 - 19:32

  Thanks all, the comments were helpful. Ended up making the switch from Red Energy to Tango for electric and Momentum for gas. Amber electric looked interesting with the wholesale rates which could carry some risk, but looks to be a waitlist for them.

• 

  BeamMeUp on 30/08/2020 - 08:55

  Did a recent check in my area for Gas and moved to Origin who currently have a good offer. “Max Saver”.

• 

  IVI on 02/09/2020 - 09:22

  We enjoy a 32% Discount (only on power used) from Alinta

  PS:

  A bit farther afield, but this will give more Aussie's food-for-thot:

  FRANCE's Nuclear-made Power is the Cheapest in .EU

  =VS=
  GERMANY's Power doubled in Co$t, while / after Billions of DM / Euros
  were wasted, IMO, on Renewable Energy there.

  (And, as app "ElectricityMap" can show you:

  + FRANCE's GHG emissions are Much Lower than GERMANY's)

  What can AU learn from this representative sample?

  Want evidence? No problem… I sugg. you:

  1. view: YouTube "James Hanson, Michael Sh.. Nuclear? Are Renewables Enough?"

  2. read @ShellenbergerMD's recent Best-Seller:

  • "Apocalypse NEVER - How Environmental ALARMISM hurts us all"

  At least 2 voices have outted SA for the LOW-VALUE-for-MONEY, that
  SA's huge Tesla-brand Battery represents:

  + YouTube "Renewable Energy is The Scam We All Fell For" (~5m in fr start of 20m talk)

  • John Kutsch in his NGS talk (Search NGS.edu for "Kutsch") [~2hr long, humorous]

  (As I wrote the above, an ad for SONNEN's [smaller, wall-mounted]
  Battery scrolled across a section of my right-margin.)

  PS Where can I find Lobbying (by Company & Issue(s)) AND/OR
  amount$ donated (by Company + Industry) to out dim PM's Party
  and / or Campaign…?

  (Nobody in his right mind would take a lump of Coal to work, to try to prove that burning Coal isn't toxic & dangerous as AU's PM did, without receiving some personal or professional benefit fr doing so.)

• 

  Pentanol on 03/09/2020 - 12:21

  You would need to set up your own spreadsheet to do this although it would quite arduous to set up initially, manually updating prices is ok but only recommend updating once every month or quarter. The reason is because whilst energymadeeasy is good to see your annual cost based on past usage, its not good at telling you what if your usage varies vy say 1-20% either way.

  I would only use energymadeeasy just for a quick check to see how far my current offer is from the market and if its not ranking high, then I'll update my spreadsheet to see which plan is best for me for my situation. Also your past may not represent current where a lot of people are working from home so you might have to see what your usage on the day you're working from home and pro rata that over the year etc etc. Also energymadeeasy doesn't tell you at a quick glance what other special offers youll get for example, 20k quantas frequent flyers or that it includes 100% carbon offset or greenpower. Check out nectr for example, their 100% carbon offset plans are as competitive as retailers offering non-carbon neutral products.