Hi all, finally started my churning journey to take advantage of the free weeks promo.
Have questions about limit extras reset:
For example, if I've used extras from January-June 2025 with BUPA (1 Jan reset), and then churn to ahm in late June (Before the 1 Jul reset) then switch to a fund with 1 January reset (i.e. Medibank) fund in August 2025, will Medibank follow ahm's limit or will they follow BUPA's?
Thank you!
Thanks - had a read through.
Sadly I couldn't locate a section that referring to limit resets?
Was there a particular page?
I used to process portability and if I was processing your transfer certificate at Medibank I would request your transfer certificate from Bupa as well, as the information on your AHM certificate would not have enough history for me to properly waive your waiting periods. Upon seeing your Bupa transfer certificate I would then be able to see what extra you used at Bupa and would adjust accordingly.
Edit: Well, I could possibly ask AHM first for a copy of the transfer certificate that you provided them. They are kinda the same company after all.
Thanks for the note.
So it essentially depends on the person processing it?
If the case is that they decide to not follow the resetted limits from AHM, then it looks like I wont be able to change from AHM till the end of 2025 as there barely any public funds that reset on 1 jul :/
Well, I was very thorough so you probably wouldn't be able to get past me, but there were many people who you probably would have slipped past!
I suppose if the extras policy you were getting at Medibank didn't have 12 month waiting periods and you somehow got on some special deal where your 2 and 6 month waiting periods were waived already then I suppose I wouldn't need to ask AHM/Bupa about previous policies.
I think they would know about people churning and trying to claim stuff then jumping ship. I worked for a major PHI over 10 years ago now? and we were aware of it back then so I imagine they are onto it more these days. I don't know what the penalties were/are as we grunts just processed and kinda flagged sus policies and let other sections look into it. As the margins are actually not that high in PHI they would be trying to weed out this behaviour as much as they could.
Edit: I'm not saying don't try to do it as such but I am just saying that they probably know what you are up to and you could be penalised for it. They probably don't mind people churning to get free months, as there isn't a whole lot you can do about that. It's all about the membership numbers and retention but at the end of the day you can't stop people from churning. You can definitely stop people from double dipping on extras though.
I'll be churning to the offers with 2/6 months waiting period waived
Before making this post, I was quite sure that your new insurer would simply copy the limits from your last insurer (not from the last 2+). Moreover, a lot of posts on ozb recommends to churn to ahm before 1 Jul, and Ive not seen a post of anyone complaining about their new limits not carrying over (from ahm) interestingly - Could potentially be that the insurer after ahm does not check properly?
When you say penalised, could you please elaborate?
You aren't really double dipping if you aren't claiming on multiple policies.
We have multiple policies just for the pharmaceutical component (non-pbs), we use the limit and then we move on to the next insurer within a couple months. Nothing wrong with that. Rinse and repeat every year. Always with the waived 2/6 month limit.
Certainly less expensive than the oldie getting bilateral hips and knees done.
@meowsers: You are if you use up your extras then go to a different PHI and try to claim on the same stuff.
@ozbs25: Not really - we checked with the funds (at least AHM / Bupa / GMHBA). You can have multiple funds with multiple limits - you just cannot claim the same item (episode of service) twice.
You most certainly can drain the limits without a transfer certificate, and then repeat the same thing with another fund if you have new services/items to claim.
@meowsers: If you are doing stuff that doesn't require you to waive waiting periods like major dental then I guess you can get by without using a transfer certificate. You really aren't suppose to use the same extras across different companies.
What are you trying to do? You can use your yearly limits with BUPA in Jan to Jun, then use your yearly limits with AHM in Jul-Dec. Then use your yearly limits with Medibank in Jan-Jun the following year. Are you wanting to use 3 x yearly limits per year?
Edit: nevermind, I see. You're trying to churn to get another offer in the Jul-Dec period. Looks like Peoplecare and Onemedifund might be the other options, but not sure what they offer.
You can also be with BUPA until say April, change to another Jan reset fund until Aug, change to AHM in Aug. Depends how you use your extras I guess.
The Jan/Jul reset isn't really a reset. It's just for Jul reset, for example, your limit will be reduced by the benefits paid for services between 1 Jul and 30 Jun. Transfer certificates list the claims from the current 6 month period (at the moment Jul-Dec '24) and the previous 6 month period (Jan-Jun' 24). If you changed to Medibank now they would add all of your claims for both periods, if you changed to AHM now they would only add your claims for the current period because the Jan-Jun '24 claims are not relevant to your limits, but even if they did add them, they wouldn't affect your limits.
See The right to change.