
Get exclusive healthy living offers and guides
Straight to your inbox
We’re reader-supported and may be paid when you visit links to partner sites. We don’t compare all products in the market, but we’re working on it!
If you’re coming to Australia for temporary work on a 408 visa, you will be required to have adequate health insurance for the duration of your stay. There are a number of funds that offer visa compliant health cover which is known as overseas visitor health cover (OVHC). You can use this page to compare policies that comply with 408 visa insurance requirements.
The 408 visa lets travellers come to Australia on a temporary basis to:
To get a 408 visa, you need to have the skills to undertake the relevant activity, be supported or sponsored, and meet specific requirements for each purpose above.
It's a requirement that you can demonstrate adequate health insurance cover for your stay. Generally this will be in the form of overseas visitor health cover (OVHC). This is a health insurance policy for visitor to Australia.
Most, but not all, OVHC policies will meet the minimum requirements.
If you're from an RHCA country you might have this automatically. But even with it, you might still need overseas visitor health cover (OVHC) depending on the purpose of your visit and what country you're from.
The mandatory level of health cover may depend on the purposes of your visit, and what country you’re visiting from. Generally most OVHC policies will meet or exceed those standards.
Visit a range of Australian health insurance providers to see how much their OVHC costs, but remember to look for corresponding differences in cover.
There are some specific things to look at.
The MBS is the Medicare Benefits Schedule.
Medicare is Australia’s public healthcare system, and the benefits schedule is a list of thousands of different essential medical procedures and how much they cost.
When an Australian goes to a public hospital and gets “free” healthcare (covered by Medicare), the MBS is generally the amount that the government pays to the hospital or practitioners to perform the treatment.
So if you find a policy that covers you for “100% of the MBS” that means you’re basically covered for hospital procedures in almost the same way as Australians are covered by Medicare.
Some overseas visitor health insurance might only cover 85% of the MBS, while a lot will cover 100%.
The catch is that sometimes a procedure will cost more than 100% of the MBS, and you may have to pay any difference out of pocket.
This difference is usually known as “the gap” between health insurance and actual costs.
Generally, you’ll be able to find out how much a procedure will cost beforehand, and can look for treatments that won’t leave you with major gap expenses.
Find out how much a colonoscopy costs in Australia and how you can avoid paying heaps.
Find out how much veneers cost in Australia and how you can avoid being hit with a big bill.
Find out how much dentures cost in Australia and how you can get cover with mid-level health insurance.
Here’s everything you need to know about insuring your prized furniture collection.
Everything you need to know about weight surgery costs.
Everything you need to know about the cost of trauma insurance.
Find out more about the costs of egg freezing and how to get cover.
Find out how to get cheap health insurance for young people.
Find out more about watch insurance and how to get cover.
A single IVF treatment typically costs over $8,000 in Australia. Here’s how Medicare and private health insurance can help.
Get cover to suit your budget and lifestyle.
Great offers, promos, and deals for today.
Hospital, extras, or neither? Find out in 1-minute.
Compare visa-compliant OVHC today.