Can I cancel private health insurance at any time?

Yep – there are no rules that stop you from cancelling your health cover at any time. This applies to both hospital and extras policies.

Will cancelling health insurance affect my tax?

Cancelling your hospital cover will have some financial impacts for most Australians. If you're over 31 years old, every year you don't have hospital cover will add 2% to your premiums when you eventually take out cover. This is called the LHC , and will increase the cost of extras cover too. Not having hospital cover may also expose you to the MLS , which adds an extra 1–1.5% levy to your taxable income if you earn over $101,000 a year ($202,000 for couples).

Should I cancel ambulance cover?

Only you can know the answer to this but we'd encourage you to think twice. Ambulance rides aren't covered my Medicare and are completely unpredictable. If you have to cancel a health insurance policy that includes ambulance, it could be worth at least considering taking out a standalone ambo cover policy. Only exceptions to this are Queenslanders, who have ambulance covered by the state government nationwide. Tasmania will cover ambulance rides for residents, but not when they're out of state, so it's still important to get if you're a travelling Tasmanian.