I have been with Bupa for 5+ years with standard Hospital Cover (it has things like hip replacement but no pregnancy, etc). I pay around $140 per month. I have seen it go up. From memory it started around $100.
There are no extras.
Trying to benchmark whether it is a norm or whether Bupa is more premium compared to others.
oh. Looks like i am overdue with my review. Haven't come across Phoenix Health before.
There are numerous comparison sites you can use to check this
Would this be standard ones like finders,iselect? Or is there one that is ozbargain recommended that is not biased
No those get paid a commision and only show a select few insurers you can use https://www.privatehealth.gov.au/ which is the government comparison website of all health insurance companies.
Thanks a lot
I have gold cover medicare. I pay 30 cents in every dollar earned.
Surely it's 32c (including the medicare levy, but excluding the levy surcharge)?
Does he not pay the surcharge because he doesn't have PHI?
Silver level Hospital cover for about $150 a month that covers everything except assisted reproductive services, cataracts, dialysis for chronic kidney failure, joint replacement, pain management devices, pregnancy and birth, and weight loss surgery. This is less than the Medicare Levy Surcharge I’d pay.
Writing this out has now made me look at the next level of cover, which, while being $10/month more than the MLS saved will cover cataracts, dialysis, joint replacement, and pain management devices. Decisions decisions.
Depending on your age the joint replacement one would be the key one, that's the one thing I'd want to skip the queue on instead of waiting to get it done via medicare. Would still cost you out of pocket but the pain of needing a joint replacement and not getting it is awful, I hear.
I pay about $7000/yr (before the government PHI rebate) for a family policy - gold level hospital cover ($500 excess) with medium level extras.
You could do better. I think you could get around that kind of coverage for $4,000-4,500 a year. Maybe look at HCF as a comparison.
I just checked HCF, the gold hospital cover by itself was $7620/yr (before govt rebate) already. Adding mid extras cover made it $8900/year, about 27% more than what I'm paying?
EDIT: here's a screenshot https://imgur.com/a/LFIIvPN. My inputs were:
- QLD
- Family
- Under 65 yo
- No govt rebate (to compare apples with apples)
- Chose Gold hospital cover
- Chose mid extras
- Chose $750 excess (couldn't figure out how to choose $500)
Bupa could be cheaper. Did you try? Based on my recent discussion (In VIC), you could get the same <5K per year
@chrismatt: Just tried plugging in the same details for Bupa - Family Gold Hospital and Extras (no govt rebate) with $500 excess was over $10k/yr!
@pangwen: Just checking my cover, it appears that it’s no longer available for new entrants - I suspect this is why there’s nothing close to this price point on the market.
Interesting. Consider if you need gold cover. It only covers very rare things compared to the tier down usually. Just make sure you have heart/cardiovascular cover
@serpserpserp: True - looking at HCF though, it appears that the price I'd pay for the next tier down (Silver Plus) would be a marginal saving on what I'm currently paying ($6560/year). Being a different company, the mid level extras cover is slightly different with some things being better and some things being worse.
If youre shopping around for new health cover I found it useful to subscribe to Choice for a month and use their health insurance selection tool. They don't get paid a commission.
For what its worth, I ended up going with Australian Unity's cheapest plan and lowest extras for $110/month.
I checked and ended up getting a lot of results, more confusing than I thought. Not sure if it's just me.
I found the Choice one to be more comprehensive at finding cover that matches your situation best. Each to their own. Plus its good to support Choice - they have done a lot for the consumer.
on Bronze with HBF, i think it's around $900 a year so $75 a month for the bear minimum
I'm on a bronze cover thats not available for new customers with Phoenix Health and I pay $100.50 (will rise in price this year)