List of Health Insurance Providers in Australia
There are two different kinds of healthcare: public and private. The public healthcare is underpinned by Medicare, a public insurance scheme that provides Australian citizens and residents access to certain healthcare.
Healthcare covered by Medicare includes a wide range of health and hospital services at no or low cost. This includes seeing a GP, and necessary tests such as scans or x-rays. The Australian government pays for Medicare through the Medicare levy, and Australian taxpayers pay 2% of their taxable income towards the levy.
Despite this universal healthcare system, many Australians still choose to invest in private health care. That’s because private health insurance can help pay for healthcare needs that Medicare doesn’t cover and allows you to be treated in hospital as a private patient.
Who needs a Private Health Insurance?
Private health insurance is optional–it is not a necessity. Many individuals or families choose private health care for the aforementioned reasons of additional healthcare needs, such as physiotherapy or orthodontics. Others do so in order to avoid paying the Medicare Levy Surcharge: a tax payable if your income is above a certain level and you don’t have private hospital cover.
If you decide you want private health insurance, you need to consider the type of health insurance you want, what inclusions you would like in your policy, and the health insurance providers that offer such policies.
Types of Health Insurance
There are two types of private health insurance cover: hospital cover which solely offers in-hospital treatment, or extras cover which includes optometry, dental, physiotherapy and so forth.
Many consumers choose to take out a combined policy, in which both in-hospital and extras cover is provided.
What is Covered by Private Health Insurance?
Private health insurance coverage depends on the provider and the policy that an individual chooses.
Services that private health insurance covers generally include:
- Physiotherapy
- Chiropractic treatment
- Dental treatment
- Orthodontics
- Speech therapy
- Prescription glasses or contact lenses
However, private health insurance policies offer different levels of extras cover, meaning some levels or providers may cover all of these services, while others only cover a few.
Health Insurance Providers in Australia
According to the ACCC, there are more than 30 insurers in Australia offering a wide variety of health insurance products.
Some health insurance companies restrict their services to certain members or groups, such as certain educational backgrounds or localities. This is a normal practice for insurance companies, as it is with superannuation.
The below list, however, is a list of the current open insurers offering health insurance in Australia–meaning anyone can take out a policy with the provider. This list is true at the time of writing and may not be exhaustive.
- AAMI
- Ahm
- AIA
- Apia
- Australian Unity
- BUPA
- frank
- GMHBA
- HBF
- HCF
- Health Insurance Fund of Australia
- Hunter Health Insurance
- Latrobe Health Services
- Medibank
- Mildura Health Fund
- nib
- Onemedifund
- Peoplecare
- Phoenix Health Fund
- Qantas Health Insurance
- rt health
- Westfund Health Insurance
