Choosing Cover: 10 Questions to ask yourself

Choosing your health insurance doesn’t need to be difficult. To help you in your decision making, we’ve put together our top tips for choosing private health insurance, with 10 questions to guide you. 

1. Are you sporty? 

Being involved in sports often increases your chances of reconstructions of knees, shoulders, etc. Sports accidents are more common than you think. If you’re sporty, it’s worth considering hospital insurance that includes joint reconstructions and Extras that includes physio for the post-op rehab. 

2. Do you have young kids? 

Think your children may need braces? What people often don’t know is there’s a 12-month waiting period for orthodontic work such as Invisalign. Consider taking out extras insurance that includes orthodontics. Peoplecare offer cover for orthodontics on our Premium Extras and High Extras cover. Check out our quick orthodontics guide for more information. 

3. Would you want to have a baby soon? 

If you answered yes, consider a policy that covers you for obstetrics. Why? It means you get an obstetrician of your choice, whereas if you go public you’ll get a midwife or the obstetrician on staff, and you won’t be choosing them. The midwife may also change depending on who’s available. Going private also means there’s a very high chance you’ll get your own room and a longer stay. Going public means that your hospital stay could be just 2-3 days depending on your circumstance. Just remember: the baby must be born after you’ve served your 12-month waiting period. So, get covered early. 

4. Are you just wanting to avoid extra tax? 

The Government incentivises Aussies to take out hospital cover to lessen the load on the public system, so they may hit you with the Medicare Levy Surcharge if you don’t have hospital insurance. Lifetime Health Cover loading could also apply if you take out private health cover after you turn 31. 

5. Do you have enough savings if something were to go majorly wrong with your teeth?

If you’re someone who’s been saving for a rainy day, extras cover might be worth skipping. The thing is, it’s a very unlikely story for most of us. And despite your efforts, you might still be worse off if you end up needing unexpected emergency dental work. People often underestimate the costs of major dental procedures – we’re talking easily hundreds if not thousands of dollars. 

Ask any dentist and they’ll tell you the sooner you treat an issue, the more likely it’ll be cheaper, as most dental conditions go downhill over time. If you practice good oral hygiene, it’s less likely you’ll need major and expensive dental surgery, but regular check-ups are still important.  

Having Extras cover can take some of the shock away from any unexpected issues and helps with budgeting for your regular health services.  

6. Would extras insurance encourage you to look after your health?

One great thing about having private health insurance, particularly extras cover, is that it encourages you to keep your health on track. If you have extras cover and visit our Peoplecare Eyes & Teeth clinic in Wollongong, you could benefit from no gap* preventative dental. This’ll save you on dental check-up fees, but more importantly it’ll save you missing something serious.  

You’re also just more likely to go get something sorted, like back pain, if you’re able to claim some of it back through your osteo or physio benefits. Or maybe it’ll mean you claim gym fees or yoga to help with a medical professional-verified condition, like anxiety or depression.  

7. Where are you in the circle of life? 

Are you young, fit and healthy? You might only need a lower level of hospital insurance. 

Are you planning a family? You might want to consider stuff like obstetrics cover and extras that includes orthodontics for the kids. 

Are you mid age? Senior? You probably don’t want to get a budget hospital insurance policy because it won’t cover you for any of the most common age-related illnesses like heart disease. The same goes with medical procedures like hip replacements (which typically means a year-long public waiting list – a very long time to be in pain). 

These are important things to chat about with us, both when you join and as circumstances change throughout your life, so you know you’ve got the best cover to meet your personal needs. 

8. How healthy are you and your ancestors? 

When checking out various covers, be honest with yourself about your health, now and in the future. What’s your current state of health? Another really important thing to think about is your family history of specific illnesses, especially hereditary or genetic ones like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and vision impairment. 

Obviously, there’s no knowing for certain what your future holds, but not factoring in conditions in your genes might be a mistake in the long run.  

9. What can you realistically afford? 

It’s all well and good to say ‘yes’ to the highest level of combination hospital and extras insurance and all its advantages, but not everyone can afford it. Along with your health needs, you need to match your cover to your financial situation, too. If top hospital and extras cover isn’t realistic, perhaps some protection is better than no protection. Could you skip extras? Or have a lower level of cover? There are also ways to reduce premiums, for example by paying a higher excess. Contact us to talk about your options, we’re here to help. 

10. Do you understand how to compare health insurance? 

When you’re choosing cover, don’t fall into the common trap of failing to see the finer details. Take the time to understand what is and isn’t covered. Price and value are not the same thing – you might be paying less in premiums but getting fewer benefits or lower limits. Private health insurance is a major purchase so it’s important to choose a product that’s fit for purpose – and that it continues to meet your needs as your life changes. Need help choosing cover? Use our help me choose tool. 

More than anything, choosing cover is all about the help you can get to make it easy. Call us on 1800 880 704 to discuss your needs. 

 

*’No gap’ means there are no out-of-pocket costs on a selected range of preventative dental treatments (as long as your annual dental limit hasn’t been used).

 

Content on this website is provided for information purposes only. Information about a therapy, service, product or treatment does not in any way endorse or support such therapy, service, product or treatment and is not intended to:

• replace advice from your doctor or other registered health professional; or
• constitute a comprehensive guide concerning all aspects of the therapy, product or treatment described on the website.

Peoplecare encourage you to seek your own medical advice from a doctor, or a registered medical or health professional and do not bear any liability of the information contained on this section of the website.