Finder’s health insurance methodology

What are the Finder health insurance awards?

Finder's health insurance awards is a ratings methodology for private health insurance based on a combined price and features score ranging from 0 to 10. We rated almost every health insurance policy available in Australia and selected winners for the following categories:

• Health insurance provider
• Gold hospital
• Silver hospital
• Bronze hospital
• Basic hospital
• Comprehensive extras
• Medium extras
• Basic extras

We use the final scores from our insurance awards to inform the top picks on several of our pages, including the best health insurance page.

Finder's health insurance awards criteria

The criteria for Finder's health insurance awards were determined by our insights team and health insurance experts.

Hospital insurance eligibility criteria

• The policy must be available for new policyholders after April 2024
• The product must cover policyholders for treatment as a private patient in a private hospital
• The product must exempt the policyholder from the Medicare Levy Surcharge and the Lifetime Health Cover loading
• An insurer may only claim one place in the final winners' list in this category
• The product must not be from a restricted fund
• The product must be approved by the Commonwealth Ombudsman
• Funds must have at least 0.5% national market share, according to the Commonwealth Ombudsman
• The product must have a $750 excess
• The product must be classed at the appropriate tier for the awards (Gold/Silver/Bronze/Basic) – "Plus" policies are included in their base category
• Where duplicate products exist with the same underwriter, a single product will be chosen based on other product features – this is noted on the relevant awards with an asterisk (*)

Extras cover eligibility criteria

• The policy must be available for new policyholders
• An insurer may only claim one place in the final winners' list in this category
• The product must not be from a restricted fund
• The product must be approved by the Commonwealth Ombudsman
• Funds must have at least 0.5% national market share, according to the Commonwealth Ombudsman
• The product must be classed at the appropriate tier for the awards (Comprehensive/Medium/Core)

Finder's health insurance awards methodology

1. How we calculated our hospital score

Products were assessed by averaging premiums (with a $750 excess, no rebate applied) from all states and territories for 4 life stages: single, couple, family and single parent. We took the 38 coverable treatment categories and assessed them against the average price for each product, with policies offering the best value scoring the highest.

How we calculated the hospital features rating:

The policy with the largest number of treatments covered earned the highest feature rating. Since everyone has different health needs, we did not weigh specific treatments as more important than others. It's important that you take into consideration your own circumstances when you look for health insurance. The following treatments were included in our features rating:

2. How we calculated our extras score

The extras cover methodology is broken down into 3 tiers: core, medium and comprehensive. Policies were only considered for the top category they were eligible for. The policies within each tier were then ranked.

How we calculated the extras features rating:

3. How we calculated our health insurance winner

The best health insurance provider was determined by awarding points to the winners and runners-up of the gold/silver/bronze/basic awards and extras policy awards. 3 points were awarded to the winning fund for each award, 2 points to the first runner-up and 1 point to the third runner-up.

What are the Finder customer satisfaction awards?

The Finder customer satisfaction awards recognise Australia's favourite brands across a huge number of categories. We survey thousands of Australians to understand how they feel about their recent product purchases to help you make a decision about what product to get. It's an independent awards program calculated by our data and insights team. Commercial partnerships do not influence the results in any way.

Health insurance customer satisfaction awards criteria

To get our customer satisfaction award winners for health insurance, we asked a total of 765 customers how they felt about their current health fund. To be eligible for inclusion in the final results, we had to get a minimum of 45 responses for each health insurer.

We asked each customer to rate the following out of 5:

• Features and benefits
• Customer service
• Ease of application
• Value for money
• Overall

Respondents were also asked whether they would recommend the brand to a friend. The final score was calculated as an average of all metrics scored.

In total, 3 awards were given out:

• Winner
• Highly commended
• Highly commended.

Frequently asked questions

• How often are policies reviewed for the Finder awards?

  We currently run our Finder health insurance awards annually. The 2024 awards are based on policies that were available for new policyholders as of April 2024.

• Do we rate all products available in the market?

  We endeavour to assess all health insurance policies on the market. In some cases, this isn't always possible and it may be that not every product or brand was included for judging.

• Why aren't some health insurers included in the final results?

  Sometimes we aren't able to include an insurer in our final results because they were a restricted fund or had less than 0.5% of the market share. The policy must also be available for new policyholders as of April 2024 and approved by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.