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Bupa Overseas Visitor Health Cover Review

Bupa Overseas Visitor Health Cover is good if you want lots of choice and a reliable, trusted provider.

Several Australian visa types require visitors to take out overseas visitor health cover (OVHC). Bupa offers several OVHC types and all options are 100% compliant with Australian 485 and 482 visas.

Pros

  • It's well-known and trusted. Bupa is the second-largest health insurer by market share in Australia, just behind Medibank, and has a global presence.
  • It comes with lots of options to suit various budgets – unlike many other brands.

Con

  • It can't cover everything – you'll still incur out of pocket expenses if you need medical care.

Bupa Care Australia OVHC: Our verdict

Bupa is good if:

  • You need to meet condition 8501 of your visa.
  • You want to avoid ambulance fees.
  • You aren't covered by a RHCA.

Bupa is not great if:

  • You're overwhelmed by lots of choices.
  • You're coming to Australia as a student – you'll need OSHC.

Review by our insurance and innovations editor Gary Ross Hunter

What types of health insurance does Bupa OVHC offer?

Hospital icon

Hospital Coverage

Bupa offers six OVHC plans:

  • Essential Lite Visitors Cover
  • Essential Visitors Cover
  • Essential 50 Visitors Cover
  • Mid 60 Visitors Cover
  • Explorer Visitors Cover
  • Explorer 50 Visitors Cover
  • Short Stay Visitors Cover
Essential LiteEssentialEssential 50Mid 60ExplorerExplorer 50Short Stay
Weekly starting cost$23.05$30.86$37.06$76.22$45.82$52.02$12.27
Hospital coverMediumMediumMediumMediumMediumMediumLow
Amount of costs coveredMediumMediumMediumMediumMediumMediumLow

Extras icon

Extras coverage

Unlike many other insurers, Bupa offers several extras insurance options, including:

  • Freedom 50 Extras. This pays 50% towards benefits including General Dental, Physio, Chiro and Osteo.
  • Freedom 60 Extras. This pays 60% towards benefits including General Dental, Physio, Chiro, Osteo and Remedial Massage.
  • Top Extras 75. This pays 75% towards benefits including General Dental, Major Dental & Endodontic, Optical, Physiotherapy, Acupuncture, Remedial Massage and more.
  • Top Extras 90. This pays 90% towards benefits including General Dental, Major Dental & Endodontic, Optical, Physiotherapy, Acupuncture, Remedial Massage and more.

Ambulance icon

Ambulance coverage

Bupa will pay 100% of the cost of emergency ambulance transport across Australia. Ambulance services aren't generally free in Australia.

Bupa health insurance complaints

We looked at the 2023 Ombudsman health insurance complaints. Here's how Bupa stacked up:

  • It's good if you want a reliable customer service provider – it had a better complaint ratio than most of Australia's other large funds including HCF and nib.*
  • While it didn't receive many complaints compared to market share, it's not quite the best. HBF and Westfund did slightly better.

Bupa OVHC frequently asked questions

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Editor, Insurance

Gary Ross Hunter was an editor at Finder, specialising in insurance. He’s been writing about life, travel, home, car, pet and health insurance for over 6 years and regularly appears as an insurance expert in publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian and news.com.au. Gary holds a Kaplan Tier 2 General Advice General Insurance certification which meets the requirements of ASIC Regulatory Guide 146 (RG146). See full bio

Gary Ross's expertise
Gary Ross has written 681 Finder guides across topics including:
  • Health, home, life, car, pet and travel insurance
  • Managing the cost of living

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